ONE PER CENT
Mathematics workshop for students of classes XI and XII
Friday 29 November 2013
Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMSc)

This one-day mathematics workshop was aimed at students of classes XI and XII. The original announcement is here.

There were four lectures:

Videos of the entire proceedings are publicly available (just click on the link). Note that empolyment and career opportunities for mathematics majors are discussed in the addresses by R. Balasubramanian (Director, IMSc) and Rajeeva Karandikar (Director, CMI) during the valediction.

There was also a short, written quiz at the end of the day, the purpose of which was not at all to 'test' or 'grade' the students but only to get them to pay close attention to the talks. Thus the quiz was 'open notes' and based on the material covered in the talks. Participants were encouraged to listen attentively, take notes, and clear their doubts by asking questions. The quiz paper is here.

The workshop was free. No fee of any kind was charged. Lunch, snacks, and beverages were provided free of cost to all participants.

Participation details: The workshop was attended by 218 students from 44 schools in Chennai and vicinity. Also 35 teachers who came as escorts to their students participated. We thank the schools for their participation and look forward to their continued support for future outreach efforts of IMSc.

Important note: This workshop is planned to be an annual affair. Interested schools are therefore encouraged to look out for an announcement around the same time of the year in the coming years.

Also featuring among the outreach efforts of IMSc are separate workshops for school teachers, for college teachers, and for college students. In addition to these programmes addressed to specific audiences, several other academic events at IMSc which occur throughout the year (follow the relevant links on http://www.imsc.res.in/ for details) maybe of interest to you (depending upon your specific interest in science).

Organizers: K N Raghavan knr-at-imsc-dot-res-dot-in, Parameswaran Sankaran sankaran-at-imsc-dot-res-dot-in

Explanation of the title: The title is an allusion to the famous quote "Genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety nine per cent perspiration", attributed to Edison. The workshop is an attempt to provide a bit of inspiration. For any inspiration to have effect, it must be backed up by a lot of hard work ("ninety nine per cent perspiration"), which message we hope is not lost on the participants.