Göttingen University Students Excel in International Mathematics Competition

Grand First Prize” for Male Hesse – 400 participants in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria

She is the first student from the University of Göttingen to be awarded a “Grand First Prize”: Male Hesse, a mathematics student, won this prize in the individual ranking of the “International Mathematics Competition for University Students” (IMC) in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria. Also successful were Göttingen University students Lennart Finke (first prize), Anton Fehnker (second prize), Janek Große (third prize) and Johanna Kratz (certificate). In the team evaluation, these students were placed second across the whole of Germany and 13th in Europe. A total of 400 students from all over the world took part in the competition.

“We are delighted with our students’ wonderful achievements,” said Professor Chenchang Zhu at the University of Göttingen’s Mathematical Institute, who prepared the students together with Rok Havlas, PhD student, University of Göttingen. She added: “For the first time, one of our students has received the Grand First Prize.” In two five-hour written examinations, the mathematicians had to master challenging tasks from the subfields of algebra, geometry, analysis, number theory, and combinatorics. The five participants had qualified for the competition by going through a number number theory, and combinatorics. The five participants had qualified for the competition by going through a number of earlier selection rounds in Göttingen.

The competition was launched in 1994. Since then, students from over 200 universities from more than 50 countries have taken part. This means the competition has long since expanded beyond the borders of Europe. The University of Göttingen has participated in the IMC since 2005. This year’s participation was supported by the Mathematical Institute of the University of Göttingen, the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, and the Universitätsbund Göttingen.