International Mathematical Olympiad 1971

Reunion in Cambridge 2024

This is the website for the Cambridge 2024 reunion of the participants in the International Mathematical Olympiad in 1971 in Žilina, Czechoslovakia.

Introduction
Programme
Other Attractions
Website and later communications
Transport to Cambridge
Accommodation in Cambridge
Communicating with us
Pictures and links

Introduction

We are inviting you to the 2024 reunion for IMO 1971 contestants, to be held from Thursday 11th to Sunday 14th April in Cambridge. As usual, the invitation is going out to absolutely all the people we have email contacts for - 78 in number!

There have been reunion meetings for contestants from countries in the 1971 International Mathematical Olympiad every year from 2016 - 2019. (If you have come to one of the reunions in previous years you already know this - and if you haven't come before then anyway you probably know this already from invitations sent out in previous years.) The 2020 reunion in Cambridge had to be postponed because of Coronavirus, but it is finally happening.

There have been very enjoyable meetings in Vienna + Bratislava, Dresden, Groningen, Stockholm, and Brno, and this time the meeting will be in Cambridge, organised by the UK team. The programme is, as usual, a mixture of things of mathematical and general interest. It is not just for former team members - several spouses and partners have attended each year.

(In case you haven't been to one of these before, I should say that they are not 'conferences': the host country team organises the events, but people attending have to organise their own accommodation and travel to and from Cambridge, and will need to pay for their own entrance tickets where appropriate, and meals; but the host team will always be glad to give information and advice.)

Programme

Most of the places mentioned below are marked on the map (tap the

layers control to show the places for the different days).

The planned programme for 2024 is as follows:

Wednesday 10th April:
Some of you have said that you are arriving in Cambridge on Wednesday, but nothing is organised.
Thursday 11th April:
- 11am to 1pm: The Fitzwilliam Museum (free entry, Trumpington Street, CB2 1RB, open Tuesday to Saturday 10am to 5pm, Sunday 12noon to 5pm). This has lots of varied exhibits on history, art, etc., with a nice shop and cafe.
- 1pm to 5pm: Free afternoon (see Other Attractions below)
- 5pm onwards: we will be meeting at The Eagle pub (Bene't Street, CB2 3QN; see also the Wikipedia information) This is the pub famous as the place where in 1953 Francis Crick and James Watson made the announcement of the discovery of the 'secret of life' to the surprised lunchtime drinkers (who maybe thought that the secret was really beer and not the structure of DNA).
- The evening meal at 7 will be at Bill's restaurant (Green Street, CB2 3JX)
Friday 12th April:
- At 10am we meet at St John's College Main Gate (St John's Street, Cambridge, CB2 1TP) (see map)
- 10:30am to 11:30am: we visit St John's College Library with guide Adam Crothers
- We cross the Bridge of Sighs
- We visit the Centre for Mathematical Sciences, where we will also have lunch
- We walk along the Coton footpath to the Physics Department's modern Cavendish Laboratory (J.J. Thomson Avenue, CB3 0HE, off Madingley Road). (This is 2 km to the West of the centre of Cambridge, and should not be confused with the Old Cavendish which is on the 'New Museums Site' - see below.)
- 2pm to 3pm: At the Cavendish we will visit the Cavendish Museum with guide Dr. Harry Cliff, where we'll be able to see various interesting items (they have equipment used by Maxwell, J.J.Thomson and others).
- We catch a bus to Grange Road, then walk to Trinity College (Trinity Street, CB2 1TQ)
- 4pm to 5pm: We visit the Wren Library with guide Dr. Nicolas Bell, and we hope to see an annotated copy of Newton's Principia Mathematica
- We leave Trinity College passing through:
  - The Cloisters in Nevile's Court, where Newton is reputed to have measured the speed of sound in a simple experiment
  - Trinity Great Court (claimed to be the largest university court in the world) where we will point out where the rooms of Newton and Byron were
  - Trinity College Main Gate, where we can see the statue of the founder Henry VIII, holding a chair leg instead of a sceptre
- On Trinity Street, we pass Newton's tree, which was grown from a cutting off the tree that might have inspired Newton
- 7pm for 7:30pm: we dine at St John's College in the Wordsworth Room, 1st Court. The menu is:
  - Duck and partridge ballantine
  - Baked cod fillet
  - Raspberry/pistachio friands with ice cream
  - Complimentary wine
  The cost will be £31 for three courses, including bread/water/coffee/tea and a chocolate truffle.
Saturday 13th April:
- At 10am we meet at St John's College Main Gate again
- 10am to 12noon: walk in central Cambridge (see map):
  - Trinity Street, where we pass:
    - Newton's tree again
    - Trinity College Main Gate again
    - The 6-sided sundial at Gonville & Caius College
  - Senate House Hill, where we pass:
    - Great St. Mary's Church:
      - The datum point for the first milestones in Britain is the base of the West Tower
      - Cambridge students are required to live during term time within 3 miles of Great St. Mary's
      - Great St. Mary's is where the Westminster Chimes came from
    - The Senate House, where graduations take place
  - King's Parade, where we pass:
    - King's College Chapel
    - The Corpus Clock
  - The Arts School (Bene't Street, CB2 3PT) (where the mathematics lectures used to be - a chance for the UK IMO team to reminisce!)
  - The Old Cavendish Laboratory (Free School Lane, CB2 3QA) (where J.J. Thomson found the electron and Chadwick found the neutron)
  - Free School Lane
  - 11:30am - 12 noon: Pembroke College
  - Hobson's Conduit, which was built in the 1610's to bring fresh water into Cambridge from chalkland springs about 4½ km to the south. At certain times of the year, water flows in channels alongside Trumpington Street, which can be seen outside Pembroke College and The Fitzwilliam Museum.
  - Silver Street, from where we can see the Mathematical Bridge in Queens' College
  - Sidgwick Avenue
  - Newnham College, where there is a Bletchley Park Exhibition
  - Selwyn College
- 12 noon to 1pm: Lunch at Newnham College Cafe and/or Selwyn College Hall
- After lunch the UK team collect their cars and we drive to Ely
- 2:30pm: meet at Ely Cathedral
- Visit the cathedral (entrance fee £14) and possibly the Stained Glass Museum (entrance fee £6, 40 spiral steps to get in)
- Possibly walk down to the River Great Ouse
- 5:30pm: drive back to Cambridge
- 7:30pm: Farewell evening meal at Golpo Bengal Restaurant, where we can reflect on the contradictions and oddities of Cambridge:
  - the Old Cavendish being on the New Museums Site
  - the maths lectures formerly being in the Arts School
  - the rowing competition of the May Bumps being in June
  - the college May Balls also being in June
  - Trinity College Clock, which strikes every hour twice
  - Senate House Hill, Market Hill, and Peas Hill being almost perfectly level
  - the one-way system that goes backwards
  - the bronze(?) sculpture of Ariadne outside Cambridge Railway Station, which hasn't been unwrapped yet (and never will be)
Sunday 14th April:
There will be at least one event planned for the morning:
- One possibility is punting along the Cam, probably along the stretch known as The Backs which has fine views of the backs of several colleges, with the river passing under the interesting Bridge of Sighs (named after the one in Venice) and the Mathematical Bridge (mentioned above). We would need to find out exactly how much interest there was in this, and it probably would not be very appealing if the weather was predicted to be rainy.
- Another possibility would be a visit to King's College Chapel (King's Parade, CB2 1ST, open 9:30am to 2:45pm or 3:45pm on all the days of our reunion and several days beforehand, ticket £14 online).
- One more alternative is a visit to the Cambridge University Botanic Garden (1 Brookside, CB2 1JE, open daily 10am to 6pm, ticket £7.70).

Other Attractions

For anyone being in Cambridge before or after the planned programme, there are other attractions within the city that may be of interest:

The Whipple Museum of the History of Science (Free School Lane, CB2 3RH, free entry, open Monday to Friday, 12:30pm to 4:30pm).
The Polar Museum (Scott Polar Research Institute) (Lensfield Road, CB2 1ER, open 10am to 4pm Tuesdays to Saturdays, open 12noon to 4pm Sundays, closed on Mondays, free entry).
The Museum of Cambridge (Castle Street, CB3 0AQ, open Sundays 11am to 4pm, other days 10am to 5pm, entry £6) has collections representing Cambridge and Cambridgeshire history and heritage over 300 years.
Kettle's Yard (also at Castle Street, CB3 0AQ, closed Mondays but open 12noon to 5pm all other days, free entry) has various modern art exhibitions.
Cambridge University Library (West Road, CB3 9DR, also accessible from Burrell's Walk, closed on Sundays) is not open to the public except for some occasional exhibitions and displays.
Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences (Downing Street, CB2 3EQ, open Mondays to Fridays 10am to 1pm and 2pm to 5pm, Saturdays 10am to 4pm, closed on Sundays, free entry) has fossils, minerals and rocks.
The Museum of Zoology (Downing Street, CB2 3EJ, open 10am to 4:30pm Tuesdays to Saturdays, 12noon to 4:30pm Sundays, closed on Mondays, free entry).
The Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (Downing Street, CB2 3DZ, open Tuesday to Saturday 10:30am to 4:30pm, Sunday 12noon to 4:30pm, closed on Mondays, free entry).
The Museum of Classical Archaeology (Sidgwick Site, off Sidgwick Avenue, CB3 9DA, open Tuesday to Friday 10am to 5pm, closed other days, free entry).
The Centre for Computing History (Coldhams Road, CB1 3EW, 2 km from central Cambridge, open daily 10am to 5pm, £10 for over-60s) has a collection of working vintage computers, along with other memorabilia, artefacts, documents and hands-on displays.
Cambridge Museum of Technology (Riverside, 2 km from central Cambridge, open Friday to Sunday 10:30am to 4pm, £4.50 for over-65s) shows the progression of power technology through steam, internal combustion, to electricity.
City Sightseeing Cambridge (£14 for over-65s) is a hop-on hop-off open top bus tour showing various attractions in and around Cambridge.
The Tourist Information Centre (11 Peas Hill, CB2 3PP) might give you further ideas.

And of course there are those items listed above for Sunday, if you don't do them on that day.

Website and later communications

This website (chrishills.org.uk/ChrisHills/IMO) contains the current information for the reunion. It will be updated as details and times become more certain. We will only occasionally send out emails - and then only to those who have said they are coming, or who have come in the past and haven't said they can't come this time.

Transport to Cambridge

There are a number of airports classed as serving London. The ease of getting to Cambridge varies considerably.
- Stansted Airport is the easiest for Cambridge, because there is a direct train every half an hour, taking half an hour.
- From Luton Airport you need a coach or a coach and train, and it takes about 1½ hours.
- From London City Airport there is the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) into London and then a train to Cambridge, taking about 1¾ hours altogether.
- From Gatwick Airport there is a direct train every half an hour, taking 2 hours.
- From Heathrow Airport there are trains into London, and then a train direct to Cambridge, taking 2 to 3 hours altogether. There is also a direct coach service, taking between 2½ hours and 3 hours.
- The cost of these options using a train varies in the order above: cheapest is using Stansted and most expensive is using Heathrow. There may be further options using buses or coaches. The website rome2rio.com is useful for finding out travel options.
Eurostar trains arrive at St. Pancras, then walk to King's Cross (5 minutes), then train direct to Cambridge (about 50 minutes). Trains also run direct from St. Pancras to Cambridge, taking about 1 hour 10 minutes.
Cambridge Railway Station (not Cambridge Heath or Cambridge North!) is about 1.6 km from central Cambridge (because of opposition from the university, or maybe not), but buses run regularly (routes 1, 3, 7, and others).
Cambridge Bus Station is in Drummer Street, but buses also arrive at Regent Street, and some coaches arrive at Parkside.

Accommodation in Cambridge

For places to stay in Cambridge there are various hotels, and it may well be useful for you to look at 'Bed & Breakfast' (B&B) or Airbnb accommodation.

But it can also be worthwhile to consider staying in one of the colleges that offer accommodation during university holiday times (which is when April 11th to 14th is). The website universityrooms.com/en-GB/city/cambridge/home is excellent for this. If you use this site, do check carefully that you would be getting exactly what you want, such as: shared bathroom or ensuite bathroom; single, twin or double beds; breakfast included or not; in a historic or a new building; near the centre of the city or a little outside. The colleges that came up when I tried the site for the dates in question were:

Christ's College - in the college, which is central.
St Catharine's College - in the college, which is central.
Gonville & Caius College - not at the main college site, but instead at 5 West Road near Queens' College; there is Harvey Court which has accommodation in both historic and new buildings, and Stephen Hawking court which is brand new.
Selwyn College - at the college, which is slightly further out, on Grange Road, with 20th Century buildings, and rooms for single accommodation only.
Churchill College - at the college, which is a bit out of town, with 1960s buildings, with some parking facilities (which is a very rare thing!)

Communicating with us

If you already know that you plan to come, then it would be very helpful to us - in order to have an idea of numbers - if you can tell us as soon as you can, and how many would be coming. (This would not commit you at all!)

Please contact us at any time if you have questions or suggestions.

Pictures and links:

The UK team in Bratislava

This page was last updated: CRH_GetTimestamp