Are brilliant Math Forum or CS Forum ?

i'm apologize if i made a mistake from what i'm said. I've read a lot of good things about brilliant as long brilliant exist, because I am concerned about the way of brilliant staff with very good their idea, discussing of good literature about math. now i am writing to bring to your attention.

Brilliant had make me disappointed two times. Why ?

The 2013 Brilliant.org Summer Camp has been Cancelled. But, i don't want to discuss it anymore
As we know that, now there is hunger games, which is good by programmer. But, what about non programmer ? As we know that, the first purpose of brilliant is to development in math course (*cause i have been user since August 2012). Why don't brilliant make a mathematics competition after $8$ month the first competition had been finished instead of hunger games, which is new course in brilliant ? I don't say that hunger games isn't good, but from the reason Summer Camp has been Cancelled, i see that brilliant improving the site for thousands of avid problem solvers rather than focusing on the $40$ students selected for the summer camp. So, why don't brilliant focusing on math problem solver instead of CS participant ? I believe that, if brilliant focusing on math problem solver, this site will growth fast.

So, we are as math problem solver (why i say we ? Cause, my friend in indonesia, has the same opinion like me) really want the fall math challenge again. And about the prize, Brilliant might think held another competition will spend a lot of money, but I doubt it. If the prizes were the main problem, then the prizes provided simply not need to be luxurious, it can be something affordable such as lanyard, t-shirt, etc. I think this kind of prize totally impressed us, moreover it would make ourselves proud because it can be proof of our participation in such a brilliant competition. In conclusion, the competition will highly motivated brilliant user in math. As long as what I remember, the main purpose of brilliant existence was encouraged student to learn math, since most of brilliant users are absolutely passionate in math. Therefore, held a competition surely completed its goal.

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Math

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Remember to wrap math in $ ... $ or \[ ... \] to ensure proper formatting.

2 \times 3

2 \times 3

2^{34}

2^{34}

a_{i-1}

a_{i-1}

\frac{2}{3}

\frac{2}{3}

\sqrt{2}

\sqrt{2}

\sum_{i=1}^3

\sum_{i=1}^3

\sin \theta

\sin \theta

\boxed{123}

\boxed{123}

Easy Math Editor

This discussion board is a place to discuss our Daily Challenges and the math and science related to those challenges. Explanations are more than just a solution — they should explain the steps and thinking strategies that you used to obtain the solution. Comments should further the discussion of math and science.

When posting on Brilliant:

Use the emojis to react to an explanation, whether you're congratulating a job well done , or just really confused .
Ask specific questions about the challenge or the steps in somebody's explanation. Well-posed questions can add a lot to the discussion, but posting "I don't understand!" doesn't help anyone.
Try to contribute something new to the discussion, whether it is an extension, generalization or other idea related to the challenge.
Stay on topic — we're all here to learn more about math and science, not to hear about your favorite get-rich-quick scheme or current world events.

Markdown	Appears as
`italics` or `_italics_`	italics
`bold` or `__bold__`	bold
- bulleted - list	bulleted list
1. numbered 2. list	numbered list
Note: you must add a full line of space before and after lists for them to show up correctly
paragraph 1 paragraph 2	paragraph 1 paragraph 2
`[example link](https://brilliant.org)`	example link
`> This is a quote`	This is a quote
# I indented these lines # 4 spaces, and now they show # up as a code block. print "hello world"	# I indented these lines # 4 spaces, and now they show # up as a code block. print "hello world"

Math	Appears as
Remember to wrap math in `$` ... `$` or `\[` ... `\]` to ensure proper formatting.
`2 \times 3`	$2 \times 3$
`2^{34}`	$2^{34}$
`a_{i-1}`	$a_{i-1}$
`\frac{2}{3}`	$\frac{2}{3}$
`\sqrt{2}`	$\sqrt{2}$
`\sum_{i=1}^3`	$\sum_{i=1}^3$
`\sin \theta`	$\sin \theta$
`\boxed{123}`	$\boxed{123}$

Comments

I'd like to make a couple of comments here.

We're glad you like competitions. We do too. There's a good chance that competitions become a more regular feature.
Competitions will often be cross-disciplinary. Hunger Games is deliberately a cross-discipline competition, in that it is primarily applied math (via game theory) but also has a computer science aspect.
I'll take some people's desire for a competition that involves at least some pure math under advisement as we design new competitions.

David Mattingly Staff - 7 years, 10 months ago

Truly agree with you. I want the math challenge to be held again. When the last challenge was held, I was not a part of Brilliant, but now when I have joined Brilliant, there's no math's competition taken place since 6-7 months. I am eagerly waiting for the math competition to be held soon.

Kishlaya Jaiswal - 7 years, 10 months ago

I agree with this. I wasn't a member at the time, but I've seen the amount of prize money there was for the 2012 challenge, it was just enormous. I've now been a user for over 4 months, but during that period, there hasn't been a single math competition (except for the Brazil one). I think most users would agree that monthly competitions with modest prizes would be better than yearly competitions with thousands of dollars of prize money.

I do really love the Hunger Games competition though, and I think it is a very good idea because it will attract many new users interested in computer science, of which a part will participate in the weekly problem sets, and thus increasing the user base of Brilliant. It's just that more than half of 2013 has passed and there's been more to computer science than to math, if competitions are concerned. I'm very sure that most Brilliant users are more interested in mathematics than computer science.

Tim Vermeulen - 7 years, 10 months ago

I agree there should be more competitions,but I think they should be well rounded:Math and CS(Everybody seems to ignore physics..). Sure most of us here are more interested in the math,but that is not necessarily true for everybody;as far as the user base goes,more Physics and CS(also on the weekly problem sets) wouldn't hurt. As for the Hunger Games Competition,I do not think it is a competition for programmers, in fact I find the coding to be almost trivial,what is challenging is the Game Theory analysis required to write the optimal solution. If we are keeping count though,I think brilliant is coming out well ahead for a free website and I have seen enormous changes even in the mere 7 months since I joined. I encourage the brilliant staff to continue to be supportive and attentive to the user's needs and thank them for what they have brought so far. Now that I think of it,its a little hard to imagine life without brilliant.

Thaddeus Abiy - 7 years, 10 months ago

I completely agree with you, Brilliant is a free website, and I too have difficulties imagining daily (or rather weekly) life without it, I've been looking forward to the new problem sets for days. I just think that the amount of prize money for last year's competition could have been way less. I'm saying this because the amount of competitions shouldn't be held back by the fact that it would cost a lot of money. The users are here for the problems, not for the prizes. I'd love to participate in a math competition just to see how far I've progressed and where I'm standing among the rest of the world.

Math should certainly not be the only subjects the competitions are about, and although I'm not very good at it, I'd love a physics competition too. My main point is that I'd love to participate in a math competition here, as I wasn't a user yet when the previous competition was held.

About Hunger Games, I agree that you don't have to be a professional programmer to participate (which is great!) but that isn't what computer science is about. Computer science is about algorithms and efficiency, and algorithmic skills are required in order to win this competition. It's certainly not about math, but math lovers are logical thinkers and that skill is very helpful when designing your program.

Those days have passed when programming was done by CS professionals.

Hunger Games is not a programming competition, it is a game theory competition that involves some programming. Today, when everyone has access to powerful computers, being able to write simple programs (like the one needed for HG) is an essential skill for any mathematician. If you don't possess this skill yet, HG is the perfect opportunity to acquire it. Believe me, it's worth it! A few weeks later you will look back and ask yourself shocked: "Did I really use to do these calculations by hand?!"

So, as I see it HG is primarily targeting people interested in math, not in CS. I do agree though, organizing smaller competitions would be a great idea!

Marcell Simkó - 7 years, 10 months ago

Hello,

Maybe I'm a little out of topic. I've just joined and from what I see (in this discussion) physics is being ignored. Isn't it? Example: The math section consist of 16 questions, while physics only has 4 questions. Also there isn't any competition of physics. It's unfair since I'm a huge fan of physics. I hope there are more of physics next time.

Thanks

Natasha Astriani - 7 years, 10 months ago

e cigaretee -outernet from dhgate ^ ^

outernet dhgate - 7 years, 8 months ago

Game theory is a part of math. I know it doesn't feel like math (there isn't 1 correct solution and math usually doesn't compare 1 solution to another and compete between those solutions), I am also from Indonesia and I think I know why you feel that "hunger games" isn't about math, but there are still theoretical aspects of math that are integrated to that problem.

Taufik Hidayat - 7 years, 10 months ago

With all your respect , this website is holistic. It focuses on the different intellectuals of the students. And also time of Fermat and Euler had passed already, it is now the time of Gates and Jobs :). I appreciate how mathematics influenced much on the development of computers, but today (practically speaking) we need more computer scientist than mathematician. And for that , I give thanks to Brilliant for opening opportunities to
those who are inclined in computers.

Mharfe Micaroz - 7 years, 10 months ago

Did you just compare Leonhard Euler and Bill gates?

Yeah.. something wrong with that?

@Mharfe Micaroz – I myself have an inclination towards computers and I do admire mister Gates. But his work is no where in the same league as that of Euler.

@Thaddeus Abiy – yeah you got a point.. :)

Computer Science is built on top of mathematics. You can't just say that we need more computer scientists than mathematicians...

Taehyung Kim - 7 years, 10 months ago

Math	Appears as
Remember to wrap math in `\(` ... `\)` or `\[` ... `\]` to ensure proper formatting.
`2 \times 3`	$2 \times 3$
`2^{34}`	$2^{34}$
`a_{i-1}`	$a_{i-1}$
`\frac{2}{3}`	$\frac{2}{3}$
`\sqrt{2}`	$\sqrt{2}$
`\sum_{i=1}^3`	$\sum_{i=1}^3$
`\sin \theta`	$\sin \theta$
`\boxed{123}`	$\boxed{123}$