I am interested in people, challenge and thinking. It is Math that incorporates what I love together.——Po-Shen Loh
On November 23rd, Soong Ching Ling Forum welcomed its 4th speaker——Dr. Po-Shen Loh, a Chinese American mathematician and educator. Dr. Po-Shen Loh generously used his holiday time to come all the way to Shanghai and ignited a passion for Math in our students.
Over the span of eight hours, Professor Loh gave students two lectures and afterwards took advantage of every opportunity to interact and communicate with them. His infinite obsession with and unique understanding towards Math opened the gate to the Wonderful Math Tour.。
Dr. Loh is currently an associate professor at the Department of Mathematics at Carnegie Mellon University and the national coach of the USA International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) team. As an educator, he has led the USA Math Olympiad team to its first-ever back-to-back #1-rank victories in 2015, 2016 and 2018. This has rewritten USA team’s record and reputation at IMO, as their last 1st place victory before 2015 was in 1994.
Dr. Loh always showed special preference to Math since he was a child and has continued to purse math study as a life-long learner. He received his bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from Caltech and an honorary master’s degree from Cambridge. He completed his Ph.D. in Mathematics at Princeton University. Also in order to let more people understand the beauty and practical application of Math, he founded an educational website and gives lectures around the world.
Our lecture began with a vivid analogy. He said, “There is a disease that causes millions of people, especially children, feel pain for more than 10 years. The disease is math.” Dr. Loh is dedicated to curing the disease and turning it into an appetite by lighting students’ interest in Math. He humorously said that he was not a real doctor but a Doctor of Math.
“Is the dice game fair?” When Dr. Loh proposed the question, the majority of the children firmly believed that it was a pure game of chance. But with his guidance, they started to observe and think of the logics behind as the dice were constantly thrown. They finally found that the wining rate of the game could be effectively increased if applying some Math concepts. Theories such as Mean Value and Probabilities were covertly hidden in the little dice, and therefore children were completely immersed in Math thought.
Dr. Loh also played a video about how to catch up with a school bus by using Pythagorean Theorem. Students felt happy, and math was so cool.
Despite pleasure, Math can provide humans with a special pair of glasses to observe the world. Dr. Loh set an example from life and students found that seeing was not necessarily believing, and if we try to think Mathematically, we will get a more accurate answer.
During the Q&A session, one of the students asked, “Were you interested in Math when you were a child?” Dr. Loh said, “When I was young, I was interested in people, challenge and thinking. It is Math that incorporates what I love together. I’d like to be with those who learn Math. I feel challenged and obsessed with difficult Math problems, and the most attracting part lies in thinking itself.”
When being asked how to learn Math, Dr. Loh shared his experience. “Continue to challenge yourself.” He emphasized, “get out of your comfort zone.” It is challenge and happiness that Dr. Loh presented us in this wonderful Math tour.
On the sidelines of the lecture, Dr. Loh visited the campus and shared experience with students from our high school domestic division. He answered questions about Math competitions and further study.
As the facilitator of the lecture, Dr. Liu Wei, principal from high school domestic division, said that she appreciated Dr. Loh’s passion and enthusiasm toward Math, which is an indispensable part of an educator. She hopes that together with more passionate educators, we can inspire and awaken the internal drive of the students with an advanced educational curriculum.
