The Imo Compendium - (Problem Books in Mathematics) 2nd Edition by Dusan Djukic & Vladimir Jankovic & Ivan Matic & Nikola Petrovic (Hardcover)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

"The IMO Compendium" is the ultimate collection of challenging high-school-level mathematics problems and is an invaluable resource not only for high-school students preparing for mathematics competitions, but for anyone who loves and appreciates mathematics.

The International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), nearing its 50th anniversary, has become the most popular and prestigious competition for high-school students interested in mathematics. Only six students from each participating country are given the honor of participating in this competition every year. The IMO represents not only a great opportunity to tackle interesting and challenging mathematics problems, it also offers a way for high school students to measure up with students from the rest of the world.

Until the first edition of this book appearing in 2006, it has been almost impossible to obtain a complete collection of the problems proposed at the IMO in book form. "The IMO Compendium" is the result of a collaboration between four former IMO participants from Yugoslavia, now Serbia and Montenegro, to rescue these problems from old and scattered manuscripts, and produce the ultimate source of IMO practice problems. This book attempts to gather all the problems and solutions appearing on the IMO through 2009. This second edition contains 143 new problems, picking up where the 1959-2004 edition has left off.

From the Back Cover

The IMO Compendium is the ultimate collection of challenging high school level mathematics problems. It is an invaluable resource, not only for students preparing for competitions, but for anyone who loves and appreciates math. Training for mathematical olympiads is enjoyed by talented students throughout the world. Olympiads have become one of the primary ways to recognize and develop talented youth with a potential to excel in areas that require abstract thinking. Although the problems appearing at IMO do not involve advanced mathematics, they must be difficult and their solutions must arise from creative and clever insights rather than tedious calculations.

In preparation for the distinguished International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) competition, each participating country selects the top six high school students every year through a series of national olympiads. These students are invited to participate in the IMO, usually held in July. The IMO is a two-day contest where each day competitors are given three problems which they work on independently. The IMO host country appoints a special committee to which each country submits up to six problems. From this composite "longlist" of problems, a "shortlist" of 25-30 problems is created. The jury, consisting of one professor from each country, makes the final selection from the shortlist a few days before the IMO begins.

The IMO has sparked a burst of creativity among enthusiasts to create new and interesting mathematics problems. It can be safely said that the IMO and shortlisted problems are among the well-crafted problems created in a given year. This book attempts to gather all of these problems with their solutions. In addition, the book contains all the available longlist problems, for a total of more than 2000 problems.

From the reviews of the first edition:

"The International Mathematical Olympiad, or IMO is the premier international competition fortalented high school mathematics students. ... This book collects statements and solutions of all of the problems ever set in the IMO, together with many problems proposed for the contest. ... serves as a vast repository of problems at the Olympiad level, useful both to students ... and to faculty looking for hard elementary problems. No library will want to be without a copy, nor will anyone involved in mathematics competitions ..."

-- (Fernando Q. Gouvêa, MathDL, March, 2006)

Review Quotes

"The International Mathematical Olympiad, or IMO is the premier international competition for talented high school mathematics students. ... This book collects statements and solutions of all of the problems ever set in the IMO, together with many problems proposed for the contest. ... serves as a vast repository of problems at the Olympiad level, useful both to students ... and to faculty looking for hard elementary problems. No library will want to be without a copy, nor will anyone involved in mathematics competitions ... ."

--(Fernando Q. Gouvêa, MathDL, March, 2006)

About the Author

The authors of this volume have published the first edition with Springer in 2006. The first edition has gone through 3 printings and 2510 print sales. Links to the first edition can be found on the IMO website.

Each of the authors are from Serbia and all were medalists in the mathematical olympiads. Dusan Djusic is an expert in number theory and took part in 3 IMOs. He won 2 silver medals and 1 gold. He has also participates in 2 Balkan IMOs and medaled in each.

Ivan Matic's area of research is partial differential equations and won a silver medal at the 1999 IMO along with a number of awards in other competitions.

Vladimir Jankovic's areas of study are extreme problems in optimal control. He was awarded 2 silver medals at the IMOs in 1969 and 1970 and has been the main gatekeeper for the shortlist problems from IMOs of years past.

Nikola Petrovic took part in 3 IMOs and 2 Balkan IMOs and has been awarded silver and bronze medals.