orionhickman

From my personal experiences and the experiences of others who attempted this as minors (which may make it more difficult or easier -- it's hard to say), there's about a 0.5 chance you'll be able to make your sleep cycle just about whatever you want. The other 0.5 results in you struggling to sleep and then collapsing from lack of sleep pretty continually. Also: there is a high probability you will have a craving for grapes. No one is sure why this happens, but our guess is that it's healthier to indulge this craving.

The one-line rule is your friend.

I don't understand how this is related.

So I was the fifth winner. It's pretty fun. Keep your head on straight and you'll figure it out -- it's about the same difficulty as the qualifiers, so if you have any trouble, try and do them all, I guess.

Also, it may not be obvious that there is a skype element, but the challenge occurs completely in the browser. I finished mine before they called me on skype, so don't worry about that element.

It takes a lot of time, but the calculation was definitely something I had to do in elementary school.

In terms of proofs, they are pretty basic, and I learned that stuff in third grade. I mean, I went in and out of gifted programs, but I think the better question is how long does it take to get people to add integers correctly? Ten years?

I drove myself a lot as a child, and drove enough teachers crazy to have to switch schools about ten times before middle school, but I would be surprised if my experience is no longer strictly atypical for people seeking a world-class education.

Note: I didn't attend an Ivy-League, but I did end up skipping a few grades. All those were after elementary school, so it's likely I was ahead of students at the time -- ahead of average, not ahead of the expectations we should have for first class minds seeking a higher education in an age when this is exceptionally uncommon.

The math here is surprisingly weak. I'm not sure about where you guys went to school, but this is fifth grade stuff. Sure, there's a lot of memorization, more classics. But wowzers. No math.