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Abstract

In the Colorado Mathematical Olympiad the same problems are offered to every participant from a seventh grader to a senior. This is why they must require minimal bits of knowledge for their solutions, such as the sum of angles in a triangle is equal to 180°, or the three bisectors of a triangle have a point in common. These problems do require a great deal of common sense, creativity, and imagination. Some of the problems model mathematical research: they would capitulate only to experimenting with particular cases, followed by noticing a pattern, followed in turn by generalization, formulation of a hypothesis, and finally by a proof.

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Correspondence to Alexander Soifer .

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© 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

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Soifer, A. (2011). Three Celebrated Ideas. In: The Colorado Mathematical Olympiad and Further Explorations. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-75472-7_2

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