The first sessions: the wonder of a new idea
18 December 2024
December 2024, one of COMIMa’s very first sessions. In front of an attentive room, Dr Christalin unfolds an idea few students had met before: the pigeonhole principle. The same fascination shows on their faces — this kind of mathematics reaches beyond the ordinary classroom. Hard, abstract… and yet captivating.
A change of perspective
The hardest part is not the idea itself: it is the change of mindset. Moving from “learning a method to solve exam exercises” to “how to analyse a problem in order to find the right mathematical tool”. How do you get across that an example is not a proof — but that a counterexample is?
A programme of principles
For this school year, several great principles are on the session programme: the pigeonhole principle, induction, geometry, the extremal principle and invariants. So many new ways of looking at a problem, far beyond recipes.
We believe in it
Our approaches will surely improve over time — and we believe in our project. Volunteers driven by a love of mathematics, teachers and students come together before a new, high-level and fascinating idea. That is exactly where everything begins.
These principles — and the means to play with them — now live in our courses.
