A Nice Algebra Problem from the 2023 China Math Olympiad
The Chinese IMO team eat sequences like this for breakfast!*
Published in
10 min readJan 3, 2023
When it comes to Olympiad Mathematics, China rules.
The Chinese team has won the IMO (International Mathematical Olympiad) for the last 4 years, and has not finished outside the top 3 in the last 25 years.
China runs its National Olympiad earlier than most countries. All countries run it early in the year, using it as a key part of the IMO team selection process. But China goes one step further, running the 2023 Olympiad in December of 2022!
This article is about Problem 1 of the 2023 China Math Olympiad — the following two-part algebra problem.
Below I will explain my approach to investigating, understanding and attempting to solve this lovely problem.
There are 5 main sections in the article:
