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Does the U.S.A-Team have real American participants?
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pavel kozlov
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#1
Re: us team
MysticTerminator wrote:
Zach Abel
Zarathustra Brady
Ryan Ko
Yi Sun
Arnav Tripathy
Alex Zhai

Are there here any real american, except maybe Ryan Ko?
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I'm a member of Russian team on the IMO 2005

PostPosted: Sun Jun 11, 2006 11:08 pm  Back to top 
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blahblahblah
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#2
The first two names are caucasian, I believe. Beyond that I'm not sure what you mean by real american.

PostPosted: Sun Jun 11, 2006 11:35 pm  Back to top 
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joml88
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#3
Re: us team
pavel kozlov wrote:
MysticTerminator wrote:
Zach Abel
Zarathustra Brady
Ryan Ko
Yi Sun
Arnav Tripathy
Alex Zhai

Are there here any real american, except maybe Ryan Ko?


Ryan Ko is of Asian descent. The name they have listed on the AMC website is Taehyeon which would have been more of a giveaway Razz

s1ck_psych0 wrote:
amir2 wrote:

Orl wrote:

It is a pretty smart trick to increase one's post count by asking questions all the time which can be figured out easily by searching them on the web




There are smarter tricks too. Mr. Green




I guess you're right! Wink


lol, this could start an infinite chain of posts Rotfl
Last edited by joml88 on Mon Jul 03, 2006 11:11 am; edited 1 time in total 
PostPosted: Mon Jun 12, 2006 5:40 am  Back to top 
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sapphyre571
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#4
Re: us team
pavel kozlov wrote:
MysticTerminator wrote:
Zach Abel
Zarathustra Brady
Ryan Ko
Yi Sun
Arnav Tripathy
Alex Zhai

Are there here any real american, except maybe Ryan Ko?


Zach is American
I know because he graduated from the school I go to
whose math team will definitely not be as succesful next year without him
Sad
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 17, 2006 1:43 pm  Back to top 
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Nima Ahmadi Pour
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#5
Maybe, this is somehow off topic but Zarathustra was an Iranian Prophet with the relegion of Zarathustrian (In farsi(Iranian) we pronounce it like Zartosht)
It's not a very popular relegion in Iran (But I think it's the second most relegion after Islam in Iran), in the world too (No offence to Zarathustrians)
I'm very interested about Zarathustra Brady, any one knows wether he is Zarathustrian or his parents just picked this name for him.
Does any one know about it? (Maybe Zarathustra himself is in this Forum)
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 18, 2006 9:18 am  Back to top 
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MysticTerminator
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#6
I'm American!
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 18, 2006 9:27 am  Back to top 
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JBL
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#7
Nima Ahmadi Pour wrote:
the relegion of Zarathustrian (In farsi(Iranian) we pronounce it like Zartosht)


In English, "Zoroastrian."

The question, "Are there any real Americans?" is a meaningless question. A better question might be, "How many of those team members were born in America?"
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Joel
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 19, 2006 5:46 am  Back to top 
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fleeting_guest
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#8
Re: us team
pavel kozlov wrote:
MysticTerminator wrote:
Zach Abel
Zarathustra Brady
Ryan Ko
Yi Sun
Arnav Tripathy
Alex Zhai

Are there here any real american, except maybe Ryan Ko?


Pavel, the situation is similar to that of USSR olympiad teams: the
general population and the IMO population of the country look very different. In the USSR, a huge proportion of olympiad winners were Jewish (not all were permitted to travel to the IMO) and the same for scientists, mathematicians, engineers, chess-masters, and intelligentsia in general. In the USA, immigrants from Asia (and ex-USSR), children of such immigrants, children of white American scientists and intelligentsia, and Jews form a large proportion of the IMO population. Of the 6 names listed above for the USA IMO team, at least one sounds Jewish, three are obviously East Asian (whether US-born or not is unclear), and one Indian.

PostPosted: Tue Jun 20, 2006 6:54 pm  Back to top 
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jmerry
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#9
Nima Ahmadi Pour wrote:
I'm very interested about Zarathustra Brady, any one knows wether he is Zarathustrian or his parents just picked this name for him.

The latter. He goes by Zeb (his initials), and his AOPS username is also zeb.
I think the name is a reference to Nietzsche's work, possibly indirectly. Zarathustra is the German form.

PostPosted: Tue Jun 20, 2006 9:01 pm  Back to top 
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blahblahblah
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#10
Being named after a Nietzsche work is pretty awesome, actually.

PostPosted: Tue Jun 20, 2006 9:34 pm  Back to top 
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zeb
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#11
Wow, I'm famous Razz

The name is just there to throw you off... I'm German/Russian/Irish/Jewish.
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If this statement is true, so is Zeb's Conjecture.

PostPosted: Mon Jul 03, 2006 10:56 am  Back to top 
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transceiver
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#12
name-game
The name was selected because of a paternal fascination with "Thus Spoke Zarathustra", and because of a paternal dislike for common names, such as Kevin, John, Daniel, etc.

PostPosted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 9:52 pm  Back to top 
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fleeting_guest
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#13
JBL wrote:
The question, "Are there any real Americans?" is a meaningless question.


The questioner is from a country where "Politically Correct" is no longer an official phrase and where, unlike the Real America, one can ask and answer such questions openly. There is, of course, a variety of obvious and non-trivial interpretations of the question. By the way, it is a near-universal presumption by mathematically educated immigrants to the USA, that American IMO teams are dominated by immigrants (which is partially correct, and becomes more correct if one adds US-born children of the immigrant intelligentsia).

PostPosted: Tue Jul 11, 2006 2:59 pm  Back to top 
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JBL
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#14
I'm not sure what the purpose of your first sentence is.

fleeting_guest wrote:
There is, of course, a variety of obvious and non-trivial interpretations of the question.


Which makes the question effectively meaningless, lacking further elaboration.
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Hi Deeps! <3

PostPosted: Tue Jul 11, 2006 6:13 pm  Back to top 
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fleeting_guest
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#15
JBL wrote:
I'm not sure what the purpose of your first sentence is.

fleeting_guest wrote:
There is, of course, a variety of obvious and non-trivial interpretations of the question.


Which makes the question effectively meaningless, lacking further elaboration.


The question and its answers are clear and obviously meaningful, notwithstanding politically expedient deconstructions. It is simply a demographic fact that in the US (and Canada, Australia, and elsewhere) the IMO population differs dramatically, and racially, from the general population. Some racial groups have, so far, been nonexistent within that population, whereas others have been been hugely overrepresented compared to their share of national population.
It is of course possible to try and further deconstruct these unpleasant facts by "controlling" for various factors, but the discrepancies remain enormous.
I do not think any service is done by Political Correction of phrases such as "real American", particularly as used by non-US natives.

Added:
let me mention, e.g. for those reading this outside USA, what type of political considerations I refer to.

There remains in the US an ideology of "immigrant melting pot", as opposed to multiculturalism. It has broken down somewhat in recent times, but differentiating between which citizens are more American than the others is still considered in many social situations as making an invidious and politically incorrect distinction. In theory, Yanks are supposed to be one big family, just don't ask about the color of the garbage collectors or what language they speak. Because of its more overtly competitive, zero-sum ethos as compared to other countries and also because of its troubled racial history (oppression of blacks), in the US when obvious patterns appear such as Asians/Jews/immigrants dominating science, this is not necessarily treated as good news ("look at those talented Chinese, isn't it nice they are here!") but rather as something to be covered over by either avoiding the subject or by invoking the We Are All Americans ideology.
Last edited by fleeting_guest on Wed Jul 12, 2006 11:08 am; edited 1 time in total 
PostPosted: Wed Jul 12, 2006 10:37 am  Back to top 
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JBL
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#16
If a question has a variety of obvious interpretations (as you wrote), then it is a poor question. A good question has only one obvious interpretations (and hopefully no non-obvious interpretations).

You think the question is clear and well-posed? Is a third-generation student of Japanese descent (say) a "real American?" What about a second-generation Indian whose parents spoke English from childhood (in India, before emigrating)? What about a twelfth-generation African-American?

Perhaps more importantly, the intent of the question was almost certainly closer to my interpretation (with immigration the relevant category) than yours (race). I cannot be certain of this, because the question is not a good one. But your last two posts are, most likely, much further off the point than the post of mine you are criticizing.
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Joel
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Last edited by JBL on Wed Jul 12, 2006 12:02 pm; edited 1 time in total 
PostPosted: Wed Jul 12, 2006 10:58 am  Back to top 
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fleeting_guest
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#17
JBL wrote:
If a question has a variety of obvious interpretations (as you wrote), then it is a poor question. A good question has only one obvious interpretations (and hopefully no non-obvious interpretations).
Most questions, and most reasonable questions, contain some ambiguity. That is not a problem, much less something that renders the question "meaningless".

Quote:
You think the question is clear and well-posed?

I think it was a reasonably clear question and that it was reasonable to ask it. A PhD thesis on the definition of "real American" is not needed in order to grasp that someone was asking about an apparent difference between the composition of IMO team(s) from the USA and the composition of the USA national population. Whether the question was specifically pointing to differences in birthplace, citizenship, immigrant status, racial group, social stratum, or other such paramaters was not assumed in the answers.

Quote:
Is a third-generation student of Japanese descent (say) a "real American?" What about a second-generation Indian whose parents spoke English from childhood (in India, before emigrating)? What about a twelfth-generation African-American?
We don't need to answer those questions in order to answer Pavel's question. If, as you claim, I have misunderstood his question, I am sure that Pavel can clarify what was meant, or whether he had such a specific interpretation in mind.
Last edited by fleeting_guest on Wed Jul 12, 2006 12:16 pm; edited 1 time in total 
PostPosted: Wed Jul 12, 2006 11:55 am  Back to top 
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JBL
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#18
This is absurd. We agree the question contained ambiguity, yet you are criticizing me for attempting to disambiguate. It is not necessary to answer my questions to answer Pavel's question, but it is most certainly necessary to answer them to support a claim that the question of "real Americanness" is clear and well-posed. I did have not called Pavel's question "unreasonable," so I don't see why you think it necessary to note that Pavel's question was a reasonable one.
Moreover, Pavel had ample opportunity to suggest that I was giving a false interpretation of his question -- something he neglected to do.
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 12, 2006 12:02 pm  Back to top 
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fleeting_guest
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#19
JBL wrote:
the question contained ambiguity, yet you are criticizing me for attempting to disambiguate.


I disputed the idea that ambiguous questions (either in general or this particular question) are meaningless or poor. There was, obviously, no criticism of question-disambiguation as such.

Quote:
It is not necessary to answer my questions to answer Pavel's question, but it is most certainly necessary to answer them to support a claim that the question of "real Americanness" is clear and well-posed.


You concede that Pavel's question (are there any real Americans on the American IMO team) was answerable, so presumably it was not meaningless, after all. Some other question that you introduced and that only you have discussed here ("the question of real Americanness") may or may not be meaningful, clear or well-posed, but that is, literally, a different question.

Quote:
Moreover, Pavel had ample opportunity to suggest that I was giving a false interpretation of his question -- something he neglected to do.


Pavel did not falsify any of the interpretations of the question by at least five different respondents, so his "neglect" does not privilege the JBL interpretation over the others, but it does work against your statement that some non-JBL interpretations are worse than the JBL interpretation.

PostPosted: Wed Jul 12, 2006 2:29 pm  Back to top 
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mysmartmouth
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#20
I think the purpose of this topic has been fulfilled. Please stop arguing before it needs to be locked.
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 12, 2006 3:08 pm  Back to top 
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