The myth of Americans being bad at maths

[Scheme]

For their population sizes, Eastern Europe destroys everyone else.

 

[Ghost in the Dark]

Very true, most of it is bred from jealousy and insecurity. Anybody saying they aren’t jealous of the USA is a flat out liar...

Some US Americans don't have maths?

 

[Neph]

Romania is killing it. ~40 less Gold medals but 30 more Silver and 70 more Bronze.

Hungary too.

No sight of Australia at all. Send help.

 

[panamaican]

Romania is killing it. ~40 less Gold medals but 30 more Silver and 70 more Bronze.

Hungary too.

No sight of Australia at all. Send help.

Not really, based on average medals per appearance. The U.S. is #2 and the former Soviet Union is #1. Hungary is good but Romania is pretty average.

 

[Neph]

Not really, based on average medals per appearance. The U.S. is #2 and the former Soviet Union is #1. Hungary is good but Romania is pretty average.

Didn't I just say we were shit at math(s)

 

[Cuauhtemoc]

Not really, based on average medals per appearance. The U.S. is #2 and the former Soviet Union is #1. Hungary is good but Romania is pretty average.

On the other hand, take population size.

 

[Chinballs]

Never heard that myth tbh.

 

[whougonnacall]

Asian americans take a bow for draging up what would probably be a shameful low adverage!

 

[ultramanhyata]

Both are grammatically correct, I'm pretty surprised native English speakers would never have heard a Brit or an Aussie say 'Maths' before though, I'm American, I've heard that lots of times. Get out more.

Here in the midwest we pluralize "meth". As in, "I'm looking to buy some meths." Or, "I snort meths but I'm not down with smoking it."

Do people do that in the UK?

 

[panamaican]

On the other hand, take population size.

Not really because you're only pulling a very small number of people from the very top of your population. You're not pulling from a representative cross section. Or even a proportional amount.

 

[Jack V Savage]

I wouldn't be surprised at all if the US representatives we send in the Math Olympiad were mostly immigrants or born in the US citizens with immigrant parents.. or mostly Asians...

you know what lemme check on google:

2017 (4th)
Ankan Bhattacharya, Zachary Chroman, Andrew Gu, Vincent Huang, James Lin, and Junyao Peng. coach Po-Shen Loh,

2016 (4th place)
U.S. International Mathematical Olympiad team members Ankan Bhattacharya, Allen Liu, Ashwin Sah, Michael Kural, Yuan Yao, Junyao Peng, and coach Po-Shen Loh.Credit

2015 (1st place) - Michael Kural, Yang Liu, Ryan Alweiss, Shyam Narayanan, Allen Liu, David Stoner

Looks like mostly Asians.. lol

"American" is not an ethnicity.

Part of the reason America is great at lots of things is that people who are great at lots of things come to America and become Americans.

 

[SaiWa]

"American" is not an ethnicity.

Part of the reason America is great at lots of things is that people who are great at lots of things come to America and become Americans.

Oh no doubt!

But our elite participants are most likely imported in from other countries. Kind of like the premiership football in UK. They re all Americans but mostly not natives or not children of natives. This is something we should be proud of it IMO.

 

[The Merchant]

If a society has weak maths it also has weak science. The advances the US has made in technology should be proof enough that this is not the case.

Just by judging the Math Olympiads, an international pre-college math contest you can clearly see USA is top ranked in maths.

I imagine the maths Olympics are as a good a indicator of average maths ability as the 100m sprint is for average top speeds of humans. You're only going to find stats for those you test and there are no average people competing.

Also American progress in Science is a world wide effort. Due to the mental way you overpay for Education you have the most money to fund all these experiments hence everyone from round the world comes. Like Edinburgh Uni when they cloned first. It's not all Scottish scientists it's a world-wide effort.

 

[robotsonic]

Here in the midwest we pluralize "meth". As in, "I'm looking to buy some meths." Or, "I snort meths but I'm not down with smoking it."

Do people do that in the UK?

Meth isn't really a thing over here TBH.

 

[Possum Jenkins]

Like with a lot of things in the US, the giant inequality is what brings the average down.

The top 1/3 or 1/4 of Americans actually have an educational level that's comparable to other industrialized countries. It's just that the bottom 1/3 are SO low, they drag the overall numbers down. And no, it's not for any racist reasons, it's for the same reasons that the bottom 1/3 are in such shitty situation in ALL other aspects (health, crime, life expectancy, etc.)

 

[D3thr0n3d K1ng]

Why do Murkans always post the best person in their country at something then try to claim it represents the whole country?

The Math Olympiad, as its name implies, is like the Olympics, meaning they dont take average students and have them take tests, it is the best of the best in each country.

On average Murkans do suck in math as they do in geography, and most of their uni's math departments are dominated by Asians, generally Chinese students and professors.

 

[2DUM2TAP]

Well you have 10X our population and you don't have 10X our medals.....

 

[Cuauhtemoc]

Not really because you're only pulling a very small number of people from the very top of your population. You're not pulling from a representative cross section. Or even a proportional amount.

But the larger the population, the larger the amount of geniuses. The larger the amount of geniuses the easiest it is to recruit a few to study math.

 

[Cuauhtemoc]

"American" is not an ethnicity.

Part of the reason America is great at lots of things is that people who are great at lots of things come to America and become Americans.

That's true, as long as they remain loyal that is.

 

[panamaican]

But the larger the population, the larger the amount of geniuses. The larger the amount of geniuses the easiest it is to recruit a few to study math.

At the numbers that we're talking about, I don't think it makes that big a difference. It's a 6 person team. Finding 6 elite mathematicians, in a population of millions, is very doable.