Associate Professor Van Nhu Cuong - Author of one of the 3 good and difficult IMO International Math Olympiad exam questions

Professor Tran Van Nhung: 'Although I did not study directly with Associate Professor, Dr. Van Nhu Cuong, I still call him Teacher, a Teacher in every sense: Mathematics, pedagogy, literature, ethics, ...'

Multi-talented Math teacher from Nghe An

I was born in Kim Son district, Ninh Binh. Confucian general and land envoy Nguyen Cong Tru (from Nghi Xuan district, Ha Tinh province) had great merit in recruiting workers and leading poor people to build dikes to reclaim land from the sea and establish two new districts, Kim Son (Ninh Binh) and Tien Hai (Thai Binh) in the years 1823-1829.

In my village (Lac Thien, Kim Son, Ninh Binh), where there is a temple dedicated to Nguyen Cong Tru, whenever people mention his achievements, talents, and virtues, they often say that he was a multi-talented, humane, and "crazy" person, in the good and personal sense of these words. I would like to say this: As a descendant and "student" of Nguyen Cong Tru, teacher Van Nhu Cuong (Quynh Luu, Nghe An) also has the typical and lovely "Nghe - Tinh" features of the Confucian general and landowner Nguyen Cong Tru.

I was fortunate to have met, talked, had discussions, and even served Mr. Van Nhu Cuong wine several times. He is very unique and has a high alcohol tolerance. Talking to him is very interesting and impressive, because he has a profound intellect in many fields, always has unique ideas, words, reflexes, and ways of speaking, surprisingly unique, and surprising, surprisingly interesting, that are hard to find elsewhere, with other people. The unexpected always creates something interesting. Surprisingly interesting and surprisingly interesting.

In the past, he often drank Russian vodka, raising the glass to a full level and "emptying" it, creating a continuous process. Then I told him that if the vodka was genuine Russian, it was very fragrant, delicious and not harmful to health, but if it was fake vodka, it was dangerous. Listening to me, he gradually switched to drinking real Scottish whisky or good red wine. When drinking, he ate very little. That is a common disease of alcoholics. Maybe that was also one of the reasons why his liver weakened rapidly, and then he got liver cancer in the past 3 years. A few months ago, on March 2, 2017, I went to Vinmec Hanoi Hospital to visit him. Although he was weak, he was very alert, his eyes were very bright and he talked very happily.

Prof. Tran Van Nhung - the author of the article - visited Assoc. Prof. Van Nhu Cuong at the hospital on March 2, 2017.

Mr. Van Nhu Cuong, one of the people I respect and give books to

My two colleagues, Do Trung Hau and Nguyen Kim Chi, and I spent our time and effort in 1999 translating the book “The Fascinating Story of the Fermat Problem” from English to Vietnamese (VN Education Publishing House, Hanoi, first published in 2000, and by 2012 had been reprinted for the sixth time, 178 pages, size 14.3 x 20.3 cm).

When this book was first published in 2000, I sent it to many master mathematicians, seniors, friends and colleagues in Vietnam.

As requested, I also sent two copies to the “Four Walls Eight Windows” Publishing House in New York, USA (where the book was published in English), so that they could be assured of the quality of the translation and publication in Vietnam. Some people thanked us for the gift books and even praised our translation.

I also sent this book to a number of Vietnamese mathematicians such as Prof. Hoang Tuy, Prof. Nguyen Canh Toan, Prof. Phan Dinh Dieu, Prof. Nguyen Dinh Tri, Prof. Doan Quynh, Prof. Hoang Xuan Sinh (the first Vietnamese female mathematician), Prof. Ho Ngoc Dai, Prof. Ngo Bao Chau, Prof. Nguyen Van Khue, Prof. Ha Huy Khoi, Prof. Nguyen Duy Tien, Prof. Do Long Van, Assoc. Prof. Phan Duc Chinh, Assoc. Prof. Van Nhu Cuong,... and my colleagues and friends.

Author of one of the 3 good and difficult IMO International Math Olympiad exam questions

Among the math teachers mentioned in part 2 above, I would like to talk more about Mr. Van Nhu Cuong. The way of speaking, writing and thinking of Associate Professor Van Nhu Cuong often leaves a new and beautiful impression on me, because he always has unique ideas in mathematics, education and in real life.

Prof. Hoang Xuan Sinh was the Head of the Vietnamese delegation to the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) in 1982 held in Budapest (Hungary). At that time, I was a PhD student there. Prof. Sinh recalled: At that time, Vietnam contributed a very good but very difficult geometry problem, which was composed by Assoc. Prof. Cuong (with discussion with Prof. Doan Quynh and Prof. Hoang Xuan Sinh). Because this problem was very difficult and unique, many countries wanted to remove it from the six problems in the exam that year.

However, Hungarian Academician R. Alfred, Director of the Institute of Mathematics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, President of the International Mathematical Olympiad in 1982, still decided to keep this problem of Vietnam, of Mr. Cuong, and praised it as very nice! (“a very nice problem!”).

During the past 43 years of participating in IMO (1974 - 2017), Vietnamese teachers not only trained, nurtured and led students to compete but also had the capacity to participate equally with the international IMO community:

There have been 3 difficult and interesting problems proposed by Vietnam to be selected as one of the IMO competition problems, namely 1977 (by Associate Professor, Dr. Phan Duc Chinh, who passed away on August 26, 2017, at the age of 82), 1982 (by Associate Professor, Dr. Van Nhu Cuong) and 1987 (by Dr. Nguyen Minh Duc, silver medalist of IMO 1975). In recent years, for many reasons, Vietnam has not submitted any more questions.

According to Dantri