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

Re:Competition != Subject

[logicnazi]

Reading my post I realized that there might be some confusion over what I mean by physics or math competition (or even science competition in general). I mean this to include things like IMO (International Math Olympiad), IPO (international physics olympiad), the putnam exam, ARML or other high school math competitions. In short any competition where contestants must answer well-defined questions especially under a time limit.

I do not mean to include in my criticism things like the Intel Sciece Talent Search (formerly westinghouse). These sorts of competitions much more accurately capture the open-ended and often collaborative nature of science and mathematical research. In fact the mathematics winners at least appear to be doing real mathematics.

These open-ended project style competitions are still far from perfect. To a great extent it appeats that it is merely access to a labratory and a sympathetic professor which is being evaluated rather than the indivudal's merits. While access to money and experimental equitment are important issues in real world science they become particularly troubling in a contest setting especially among high schoolers whose access to labs and equitment is entierly dependent on the good will of others rather than their own prior accomplishments (as is ideally is in science). In areas like biology where there are often more open questions than availible researchers or equitment a competition like this will often reflect who had connections more than who had ideas.

I don't mean to slander the winners of these contests. I have known some personally and without exception they are incredibly bright talented individuals. However, the difference between them and other bright talented individuals often appears to be that they were given lab access and pointed towards promising areas by a helpfull researcher rather than ideas or scientific talent. Furthermore, the fact that winners are picked from across a range of fields further muddies the water. How do you compare an individual who solved a minor mathematical problem against someone who answered a biological question which while not of huge significance was of actual interest in the field? On the one hand the biological contestant contributed more to real science but on the other they might not have needed any new insight and merely conducted experiements no one else had yet had time to do while the mathematical result clearly demonstrates fresh insight.

In any case it isn't even clear that these contests truly desire to pick the best individual rather than merely rewarding (and thereby encouraging) youthful scientific endeavor. In either case I wanted to make clear that I don't believe these contests cause the same misconceptions as the more test oriented IMO/IPO/putnam. Even if their judging doesn't pick out the contestant demonstrating the best scientific insight they (for the most part) accurately portray the nature and process of science/math.