#183 – Po-Shen Loh: Mathematics, Math Olympiad, Combinatorics & Contact Tracing

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Po-Shen Loh is a mathematician at CMU and coach of the USA International Math Olympiad team. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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EPISODE LINKS:
Po’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/poshenloh
Po’s Website: https://www.poshenloh.com/
Daily Challenges: https://daily.poshenloh.com/
NOVID: https://www.novid.org/

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OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) – Introduction
(08:51) – Planes and bridges
(12:28) – Writing a computer game from scratch
(14:54) – Programming competitions
(18:28) – Math is hard
(23:59) – Contact tracing that preserves privacy
(1:01:16) – Math Olympiad
(1:16:57) – Hard math problem
(1:24:14) – Is math discovered or invented?
(1:29:09) – Intelligence
(1:35:59) – Math education
(1:40:10) – How to learn math
(1:49:06) – Combinatorics
(1:52:13) – Voting trees
(2:02:36) – Stochastic coalescence
(2:12:23) – P=NP
(2:16:39) – Tolkien and WWII
(2:19:00) – Advice for young people
(2:21:05) – Meaning of life