Invitation to a Mathematical Festival (MSRI Mathematical Circles Library);

Held annually in Moscow since 1990, the Mathematical Festival is a brilliant and fascinating math competition attended by hundreds of middle school students. Participants of the Festival solve interesting mathematical problems and partake in other engaging activities, while cultivating key skills such as intuitive reasoning and quick thinking. This book contains problems presented at the Festival during the years 1990-2011, along with hints and solutions for many of them. Most of the problems are accessible to students with no additional training in mathematics and may be used as supplementary material at school or at home. Other problems, however, are more advanced and will be enjoyed by students with a deeper interest in mathematics. Most of the problems in this book are specially created for Mathematical Festival competitions by leading Russian experts in school and extracurricular math education and have never been published before. In the interest of fostering a greater awareness and appreciation of mathematics and its connections to other disciplines and everyday life, MSRI and the AMS are publishing books in the Mathematical Circles Library series as a service to young people, their parents and teachers, and the mathematics profession. Titles in this series are co-published with the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI).