The Infamous Question Six

The Infamous Question Six

Have you ever heard the legend of question six ? A question that stumped the greatest minds on this planets and make them doubt their abilities. A question which was not even solved by a field medalist. It is one of the hardest problems ever.

The International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO). A completion between the best of the best. Each country has a team which consists of six members all below or equal to twenty years of age. And they are not just some common kids, they have the ability to solve awesomely hard problems, and they are fighting for the ultimate mathematical glory. IMO is held in different countries once every year. The participants are required to solve six questions of seven points each. Nine hours are given to solve six problems. The test lasts for two days, four and a half hours each. So that makes exactly ninety minutes per problem (average).

But there was this one mathematical problem that stands out. It was the year 1988 and the country hosting the Olympiad was Australia. What is so special about this problem ? Well… It was the hardest problem that had come up till then. Recently harder problems have come up but for a long time it remained as one of the hardest problems ever. Out  260 people competing, only one was able to solve it perfectly ( who got seven out of seven in that question ). Eleven of them were able to solve it to a certain extent ( all scoring one out of seven ). And out of those eleven one was Terrance Tao who went on to become the Field Medalist in 2006.

The question was come up by a crazy West German mathematician ( at the time when there was west Germany ) and he gave  the question to the mathematicians who were in charge of the selection of the questions. The mathematicians were given six hours to solve the question, and they were the guys who were like test driving it. Well guess what ? they couldn’t solve it. After six hours question six was still unsolved. So they thought “hey !! it’s too hard”, what did they do ? They had the courage to submit it!! They put it on the test. And in the original copy they put a double “**” next to it, just to make it clear that it was extra difficult. The question which was not solved by a group of world’s best mathematicians in six hours was expected to be solved by kids in 90 minutes.

Want to try it out ? here it is -

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