VietNamNet Bridge – Of the three gold medals Vietnam won from the latest International Mathematics Olympiad (IMO), two belong to the students of the High School for the Gifted under the HCM City National University. Their teacher is Dr. Le Ba Khanh Trinh, who was also an IMO competitor 20 years ago.

The six Vietnamese students who attended the IMO 2013.

Twenty years ago, the name Le Ba Khanh Trinh appeared on a series of local and international newspapers. This was the name of a Vietnamese student, who won the special prize at an IMO, the award for the clever and creative answers to the math questions.

Trinh then returned to Vietnam after the IMO in the great pride taken by Vietnamese, who hoped that he would become a new Vietnamese math talent who would conquer the new peaks in the scientific research and win honorable international awards.

Therefore, a lot of people expressed their disappointment after reading an article about Le Ba Khanh Trinh on a local newspaper recently, which said that Trinh has been working as a humble teacher at a high school in HCM City for the last many years.

The once “Vietnamese golden boy in math” has been a “quiet Vietnamese” over the last many years until a recent day, when he was found as the teacher of the two excellent students who won the two gold medals from the latest IMO.

This is a clear answer to the questions what Trinh has been doing over the last tens of years and if he has been following scientific research which he once said would be his lifetime works.

Trinh has chosen to become a math teacher, following that way to devote himself to math.

“Teaching math is like making a painting. I try to save every nerve to draw a painting which my students would make more brilliant and harmonized. It is an art,” Trinh said.

“If we, the math teachers, can draw pictures together with Trung and Huy (the two gold medal winners – reporter), the pictures would be really wonderful,” he said.

Trinh, together with Dr. Tran Nam Dung, has initiated math forums and the “Gap go toan hoc thuong nien” (the annual meeting of mathematicians) program in an effort to build up the love towards math among the Vietnamese youth.

diendantoanhoc.net, mathscope.org... are the places where students can exchange their learning materials and experiences in an easy and open way. Meanwhile, Gap go toan hoc thuong nien provides students the opportunities to meet their idols, the Vietnamese mathematicians such as Prof Ha Huy Khoai, Nguyen Van Mau, Ngo Viet Trung, Dang Duc Trong…

Dr. Trinh, who was a member of the jury board, reportedly joined the keen arguments to protect the Vietnamese students’ achievements and ensure the fairness for them.

At first, the jury board gave Huy 3 marks only for a math question. However, Trinh and Vinh, the deputy head of the Vietnamese delegation, who was also an IMO competitor, asked the board to reconsider their decision, because Huy followed a very good way to solve the problem. The members of the board later decided to give him 5 for the question.

A stronger debate occurred with Trung’s works. However, after the great efforts by Trinh and Vinh, Trung got one mark more, the decisive mark which helped him win the second gold medal for the Vietnamese students.

SGTT