Easy as 1,2,3

Adam Hesterberg '11 came in first place this summer at the 16th International Mathematics Competition (IMC) in Budapest, Hungary. He also placed first at the individual contest in the 2007 International Linguistics Olympiad, earned top marks at the 2007 U.S. Mathematics Olympiad and was the 2003 MATHCOUNTS national champion. But this mathematician has more than just numbers on his mind.

Q So I heard you could convert base-10 numbers to base 2 by your fifth birthday. Besides natural ability, what has sparked your interest in math over the years?

A There are very specific, very beautiful results in mathematics that have inspired me to keep doing math and more abstract math - the correspondence between complex numbers and exponentials, for example. Also, the Canada/USA Mathcamp that I attended in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2007 ... exposed me to a lot of higher-level math. It's sort of like home. It was while I was taking an information-theory course there that I first got involved in linguistics, so Mathcamp inspires a lot of awesome things even outside math.

It is also the source of this outfit. It is a tradition to wear sarongs, so when I want to show Mathcamp allegiance, I wear it. This outfit was also what I wore for the awards ceremony of the IMC.

Q Now to the International Mathematics Competition. In your opinion, how would you describe the overall difficulty of the problems?

A The difficulty is that the problems are like the challenge problems on math tests for math majors, but you haven't just finished the course to have the relevant techniques fresh in your mind and you haven't been told what techniques are appropriate. The problems are interesting, but they require leaps of insight.

Q "American Pie" has immortalized the phrase "This one time at band camp." So I have to ask, what is the equivalent at Mathcamp?

A I could tell stories like this for a while, like foodtongue. Let me just start with a few. This one time at Mathcamp, we sacrificed a hamburger to the aardvark god to bring rain. This one time at Mathcamp, we combined Set with Mao, and bystanders were appalled. This one time at Mathcamp we fought the wind over balloons.

Q What do you find most rewarding about math competitions?

A The feeling of realizing that there is an elegant solution to a contest problem. Realizing connections within the problem between things you wouldn't have thought to connect.

Q Final question. What on earth is "foodtongue?"

A Food tongue grass tongue fish quiche mint tongue slice grass food. There was a group of people who decided it would be fun to speak in only foods. It has now gone beyond Mathcamp. I was an OA [Outdoor Action] leader this semester, and I taught two of my OA frosh how to speak foodtongue by only speaking in foodtongue. There are now several dialects.