Is Math A Sport?

theodp writes "The close of the International Mathematical Olympiad prompts Slate to question if math is a sport, wondering if mathletes might someday compete in the Olympics alongside track stars and basketball players."

Comments

Conspiracy

[vayu]

This must be a conspiracy by geeks who want to call themselves as athletes ;)

Sure it is...

[commodoresloat]

in Japan.

It belongs more than several olympic "sports"

[Mark_in_Brazil]

Math belongs in the olympics more than gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics, figure skating, water ballet. and diving do. At least it's objective! The winner doesn't depend on the whims and prejudices of human judges.
I don't deny that the people compete in those events are amazingly talented, as are good ballerinas and painters. I sure hope we don't get olympic ballet or olympic painting events, though.
Any event where you get points for "artistic impression" and/or that depend completely on subjective criteria have no business being in the olympic games.
Yes, a soccer ref or linesman can mistakenly say a player was offside, or call a nonexistent foul. Yes, a baseball ump can miss a ball/strike call. But if that human error could be eliminated from the events with existing technology. The events I listed in the first sentence of this post all depend completely on subjective criteria. This leads to jokes about judges from rival nations giving bad scores. In the USA in the early 1980s, when everyone would agree that something was great, they'd give it a "ten" and often, some wag would pipe up with "2.3 from the Russian judge."
My point is that the very presence of events based on subjective criteria is a joke.
Math, despite not requiring physical skill (one of Bernard Suits's criteria for what makes something a sport, mentioned in TFA), is at least objective. One either gets the right answer or does not. One either proves something or does not. One either solves a problem in less time than one's opponent or does not. To me, that alone makes it more suitable for the olympics than any of the "sports" I listed in the first sentence.
The idiots in charge of the olympic broadcasts in the USA do not agree with me. Yes, I admit I'm still pissed off from the 1996 olympics, when they didn't show the men's basketball games because of f***ing women's gymnastic events. They didn't show USA-Argentina, which I would have loved to see, if only to discover how Argentina could stay within a few points of the second "Dream Team" until halftime.
Then, as if it hadn't been enough to show every trial from every competitor in every individual women's gymnastic event, and every trial from every competitor in every event in the individual all-around competition, and every (etc.) from the team all-around competition, they didn't show the women's soccer final (just the goals right after commercial breaks) because they felt it would be better to show a frickin' women's gymnastics unscored exhibition event than the women's soccer gold medal match. Sheesh!

--Mark