Math Monstrosity (Preliminary Announcement)

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Math Monstrosity (Preliminary Announcement)

Post by CPiGuy »

Hello!

This is an announcement for Math Monstrosity (tournament name subject to change), a tossups-only math side event tournament.

There will be 12 packets of 20 power-marked tossups, according to the following distribution:

4 Algebra
4.5 Analysis/Topology
2 Number Theory/Discrete Math/Set Theory
2 History of Math
2 Calculus/High School Math
4 Recreational/Other/Mixed
0.5 Applied Math
0.5 Statistics
0.5 Computer Science

Some important notes on the distribution:
-- There will be about 1 tossup per round in the "recreational" distribution which is about mathematics in other parts of academic study; this can and will include writings about mathematics, art involving mathematics, mathematical academic culture, actual real-world things with mathematical relevance, and more. There will be at least one question in the tournament which would fit in each major distribution in a standard ACF quiz bowl packet.
-- The rest of the recreational/mixed/other distribution will consist of common-links from various fields, things that don't really fit into any of the other distributions but are still important, and "recreational" topics which don't have loads of relevance in academic math but are generally cool (think anything Martin Gardner would have written about).
-- The Calculus/High School distribution will include 0.5 computationally-based problems. These will be pyramidal, but will consist of clues like "this number is equal to the integral from 1 to 4 of x^2" and "this quantity is equal to the number of ways to arrange four people in a line".
-- There will be no tossups on non-contemporary mathematicians outside the "history of math" distribution. Some contemporary mathematical personalities will be tossed up in the "recreational" distribution, but they won't just be straight mathematician tossups.

Tossups are all around seven lines, pre-editing, in Google Docs with 11 point Times New Roman font.

The difficulty will be rather variant, although I imagine there will be only a few questions easier than Regionals difficulty and only a couple questions harder than Nationals difficulty -- having said that, a few of my answerlines have not only never been tossed up in quizbowl but have never been mentioned. The majority of questions will probably be between Regionals and Nationals in difficulty, and will probably skew slightly towards the lower end of that spectrum. I have also attempted to compensate for varying difficulty by being more generous with power on more difficult questions, so the powermarks should hopefully be fairly consistent in difficulty. Having said all of that, this is my first major writing project, so I want to be very careful not to guarantee a certain difficulty, because I may be pretty far off in my estimation of this set's difficulty. I can only guarantee that the majority of questions are significantly harder than Fall.

I have already completed the entire set, and currently need only to packetize, format (in LaTeX), and powermark the questions. Edit: this is done. The packets are done.

If there is a second summer open / side event weekend in the Northeast around the end of July or beginning of August, I will probably try to have this tournament run there (and hopefully at similar events around the country). If there is not, or I can't make it, then hopefully this can get run at a tournament that Michigan hosts next academic year. I could even run both, if it's not mirrored in the Midwest over the summer. Mirrors are, of course, welcomed, but I'd prefer that they all be after I run it somewhere (that is, I run the first site). I would also be open to running a Skype mirror after all physical mirrors are done if there's interest. Edit: I don't think this will be run formally over the summer. As such, I will run this as Skypebowl sometime after NSC and hopefully before June 20th.

List of sites for this set:

MSNCT, 13 May (abridged)
HSNCT, 27 May (abridged)
NSC, 10 June (abridged)
Skype, 18 June

I think the best format for this tournament would be doubles (like Alex Fregeau's FRENCH Open), and maybe triples if there's enough demand / there aren't enough readers. Teams of four would be too much, though, in my opinion.

Hopefully there's enough interest to make this happen.
Last edited by CPiGuy on Mon May 29, 2017 9:35 pm, edited 13 times in total.
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Re: Math Monstrosity (Preliminary Announcement)

Post by Brian McPeak »

Wooooo!!!
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Re: Math Monstrosity (Preliminary Announcement)

Post by Ciorwrong »

I would definitely play this at a Michigan mirror. It seems like a fun time and I will hopefully get to learn some new stuff.

However
having said that, a few of my answerlines have not only never been tossed up in quizbowl but have never been mentioned.
makes it seem like this tournament will be quite difficult which should be cool. I am quite tired of the same answerlines coming up over and over again in math and being exposed to new topics is never bad.
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Re: Math Monstrosity (Preliminary Announcement)

Post by Hyrdofluoric_Acid »

This sounds awesome. I can't even imagine how much work it was to write twelve packets of math.
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Re: Math Monstrosity (Preliminary Announcement)

Post by Aaron's Rod »

This sounds like a TON of fun.
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Re: Math Monstrosity (Preliminary Announcement)

Post by Silverman »

Definitely would play this if I'm reasonably close to somewhere it gets mirrored.
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Re: Math Monstrosity (Preliminary Announcement)

Post by The Real Master of Flémalle »

YES WOULD PLAY 10/10.

I might not be close to any mirrors though, any possibility of a Skype tournament?
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Re: Math Monstrosity (Preliminary Announcement)

Post by Harpie's Feather Duster »

I will gladly play this and get like 5 questions
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Re: Math Monstrosity (Preliminary Announcement)

Post by jonah »

I look forward to embarrassing myself at a Chicago-area mirror, should one exist. Anyone want to team up?
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Re: Math Monstrosity (Preliminary Announcement)

Post by DeepakM »

I would be interested in playing this be it at a chicagoland mirror or at HSNCT or NSC. Sounds awesome!
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Re: Math Monstrosity (Preliminary Announcement)

Post by ryanrosenberg »

DeepakM wrote:I would be interested in playing this be it at a chicagoland mirror or at HSNCT or NSC. Sounds awesome!
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Re: Math Monstrosity (Preliminary Announcement)

Post by CPiGuy »

Okay, so I will be staffing HSNCT, so I guess I could run it Saturday night, but people who've been to it before will have to answer the following three questions for me:

1) would it be feasible to run a 12-round (including finals) tossups-only tournament after 7 at night? It probably wouldn't get started until 8 or so.

2) How much demand would there be for a fairly difficult college math set at a high school national championship, and would that demand come largely from staffers (collegians/alums), high schoolers, or both?

3) How much would a potential HSNCT field overlap with people who would be playing it at a summer open / in the fall? That is, if I ran it at HSNCT, could I still expect to be able to run it over the summer or next year and not have exhausted the field?

I won't be at NSC, and any other mirrors are way too far off in the future to be able to plan (seeing as literally no summer events have been announced aside from CO, which I won't be at), but will hopefully happen -- I imagine, for one, that there will be some sort of side event weekend in the Chicago region as well as in the Northeast, and if the set doesn't get run at side event weekends, it'll get run at Michigan (which is, I guess, kind of close to Chicago), probably in conjunction with another tournament that people will be already coming to.

Depending on the answers to those questions, I could maybe run this at HSNCT.

(Just for the record, I could also run it at MSNCT, but I don't know how many collegians will be there, and I think middle-schoolers would probably get around 5-10 tossups per round on this set).
Last edited by CPiGuy on Tue Mar 21, 2017 11:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Math Monstrosity (Preliminary Announcement)

Post by Ben Salter »

This sounds delicious. Would definitely play it if it gets mirrored in the UK.
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Re: Math Monstrosity (Preliminary Announcement)

Post by Fado Alexandrino »

CPiGuy wrote:Okay, so I will be staffing HSNCT, so I guess I could run it Saturday night, but people who've been to it before will have to answer the following three questions for me:

1) would it be feasible to run a 12-round (including finals) tossups-only tournament after 7 at night? It probably wouldn't get started until 8 or so.
1. No. The science tournament in 2015 was 7 rounds long. The music tournament last year was 8 rounds long (though was in audio format). 12 rounds would be impossible.
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Re: Math Monstrosity (Preliminary Announcement)

Post by CPiGuy »

raffi_-_c-a-n-a-d-a.mp3 wrote:12 rounds would be impossible.
That makes sense.

So, if there's demand, I could run a shorter version of this set (first 7-8 rounds) at HSNCT, but would then still want to run the entire set at a tournament later, as mentioned above.

If another side event crops up for Saturday night at HSNCT (does anyone know if there's plans for one, other than the hip-hip tournament?), then I'll gladly yield the "HSNCT academic side event" slot to whoever writes that.

I guess I'll make a formal announcement in a couple weeks if I don't see any other academic side events planned for HSNCT.
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Re: Math Monstrosity (Preliminary Announcement)

Post by Father Comstock »

This should be played at NSC!!!
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Re: Math Monstrosity (Preliminary Announcement)

Post by CPiGuy »

Father Comstock wrote:This should be played at NSC!!!
If it gets run at HSNCT in an abridged form, I'd be willing to have the same abridged form mirrored at NSC, provided that it doesn't deplete the field of potential players to the point where running the full set later would become infeasible.
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Re: Math Monstrosity (Preliminary Announcement)

Post by Harpie's Feather Duster »

CPiGuy wrote:
Father Comstock wrote:This should be played at NSC!!!
If it gets run at HSNCT in an abridged form, I'd be willing to have the same abridged form mirrored at NSC, provided that it doesn't deplete the field of potential players to the point where running the full set later would become infeasible.
You could also, perhaps, split the 12 packets in half and run 6 of them at HSNCT and 6 of them at NSC. That way you won't weaken the field to much at any given site and people who staff both nationals can hear the whole set, if they choose.
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Re: Math Monstrosity (Preliminary Announcement)

Post by CPiGuy »

The Top Percentage of Rattatas wrote:You could also, perhaps, split the 12 packets in half and run 6 of them at HSNCT and 6 of them at NSC. That way you won't weaken the field to much at any given site and who staff both nationals can hear the whole set, if they choose.
This is a decent idea, and if I end up going to NSC (which I am not currently planning on, but might), I'll probably do it. (If I don't, and people still want it run there, I'll just give them the same packets as I ran at HSNCT). My concern is less "I'll be weakening the fields at the nationals" and more "I'll be depleting the fields for running the entire set in one tournament, which was my original intent for the set". I don't know whether that would be the case, so I'll ask the people with more experience: if I were to run this in an abridged form at one or more HS national tournaments, would that preclude successfully running the whole set elsewhere, or are there enough QBers who don't go to the nationals that there would still be reasonable demand?
Last edited by CPiGuy on Tue Mar 21, 2017 9:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Math Monstrosity (Preliminary Announcement)

Post by scholarhillery »

I would LOVE to play this at NSC!!!!
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Re: Math Monstrosity (Preliminary Announcement)

Post by The Ununtiable Twine »

math is fun and easy - play this in full at hsnct plz
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Re: Math Monstrosity (Preliminary Announcement)

Post by dhumphreys17 »

scholarhillery wrote:I would LOVE to play this at NSC!!!!
Well then I have some good news for you.
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Re: Math Monstrosity (Preliminary Announcement)

Post by khannate »

Are there still plans to have another mirror of this at some point over the summer, or are the existing HSNCT/MSNCT/NSC mirrors going to be the only ones?
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Re: Math Monstrosity (Preliminary Announcement)

Post by CPiGuy »

khannate wrote:Are there still plans to have another mirror of this at some point over the summer, or are the existing HSNCT/MSNCT/NSC mirrors going to be the only ones?
So, I'd love to see this get run (hopefully in full) at any and all "side event weekend"-type events where there's enough interest to justify running it (like, if there's only four people interested who haven't played it yet, there's not much point). Additionally, after all the in-person mirrors are done, I'll run a skype mirror so that people who weren't able to make it to any physical site are able to play.
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Re: Math Monstrosity (Preliminary Announcement)

Post by jonathanelliott »

This sounds amazing! Like Ben, I'm the UK, but if there's an online mirror at any point I'd definitely be up for playing.
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Re: Math Monstrosity (Preliminary Announcement)

Post by idek »

I had a last minute appointment that meant that I couldn't make it at MSNCT, hopefully the set's mirrored during the summer or something.
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Re: Math Monstrosity (Preliminary Announcement)

Post by CPiGuy »

There will definitely be a Skype mirror for people who can't make it to in-person sites. If this ends up getting run anywhere over the summer, that will be in September. If not, it will probably be sooner.
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Re: Math Monstrosity (Preliminary Announcement)

Post by CPiGuy »

It doesn't look like this is going to get run formally over the summer, so I'll be having the Skype mirror on Sunday, June 18th. If you want to run this at a summer event, please let me know before then; otherwise I'll be posting the set publicly as soon as the Skype mirror is done.
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Re: Math Monstrosity (Preliminary Announcement)

Post by The Ununtiable Twine »

Admins, can you make a private discussion forum for this set? Thanks a bunch.
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Re: Math Monstrosity (Preliminary Announcement)

Post by theMoMA »

The Ununtiable Twine wrote:Admins, can you make a private discussion forum for this set? Thanks a bunch.
There is now a private discussion forum for Math Monstrosity; request access via the usergroups menu of the user control panel.
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Re: Math Monstrosity (Preliminary Announcement)

Post by CPiGuy »

I do not plan on running this set again in the future, and am therefore clearing it for public discussion. There's still a private discussion forum which contains existing discussion, so you may want to join that.
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Re: Math Monstrosity (Preliminary Announcement)

Post by CPiGuy »

I've posted the set on the database; it should be up as soon as it's approved.
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