Kdtyjb

Book where the good guy lives backwards through time and the bad guy lives forward

I am on the US no-fly list. What can I do in order to be allowed on flights which go through US airspace?

Can I become debt free or should I file for bankruptcy? How do I manage my debt and finances?

The change directory (cd) command is not working with a USB drive

Non-Italian European mafias in USA?

Auto Insert date into Notepad

What to do when being responsible for data protection in your lab, yet advice is ignored?

Exponential growth/decay formula: what happened to the other constant of integration?

What if I store 10TB on azure servers and then keep the vm powered off?

Multiplication via squaring and addition

Why do members of Congress in committee hearings ask witnesses the same question multiple times?

Did 5.25" floppies undergo a change in magnetic coating?

Skis versus snow shoes - when to choose which for travelling the backcountry?

Can you use a beast's innate abilities while polymorphed?

Most significant research articles for practical investors with research perspectives

It took me a lot of time to make this, pls like. (YouTube Comments #1)

Use comma instead of & in table

Casually inserting sexuality

What are these green text/line displays shown during the livestream of Crew Dragon's approach to dock with the ISS?

Can you 'upgrade' leather armor to studded leather armor without purchasing the new armor directly?

Called into a meeting and told we are being made redundant (laid off) and "not to share outside". Can I tell my partner?

How to count occurrences of Friday 13th

Significance and timing of "mux scans"

Logistics of a hovering watercraft in a fantasy setting

Soft question- The Bashing Technique and Other powerful techniques for Olympiads

Inequality with three variablesMotivation for Putnam (soft question)Math Exercises, Highschool StudentUndergraduate mathematics competitionsHow can I improve my problem solving abilities so that I stop missing the obvious?Favourite problem books at university levelWhat is the algebraic intuition behind Vieta jumping in IMO1988 Problem 6?Simple solution to Question 6 from the 1988 Math OlympiadHeuristics when doing heavy algebraic manipulation? $sqrt{a-sqrt{a+x}}=x$How to become really interested in math?Good books to learn olympiad geometry,number theory, combinatorics and more

6

1

$begingroup$

I am relatively new to the Olympiad style maths problems and I find the word "bashing" being thrown around a lot in the community and I haven't really understood it. I do know about "co-ordinate bashing" using Barycentric co-ordinates and complex numbers but I've also seen people use the term "bashing" in Number Theory, Combinatorial and Algebraic questions and don't know why.

My Question- What does the term "bashing" generally mean in Mathematics(in the broader sense)?

Also, if anyone could provide me some other powerful problem solving tools like Bashing which are useful for Maths Olympiads I would be highly obliged. By "Problem Solving Tools" I refer to concepts like Inversive, Projective and Homothety in geometry;LTE and Chinese Remainder Theorem in Number Theory; Vieta Root Jumping in Algebra. I only know a few of these and would like to see a comprehensive list of all(or most) of such important techniques. Even a link would suffice.

Thanks in advance.(First question on Stack Exchange).

contest-math problem-solving

share|cite|improve this question

asked 17 hours ago

Anurag SahaAnurag Saha

334

New contributor

Anurag Saha is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.

$endgroup$

• 
  
  
  

  
  1
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  $begingroup$
  Clarification of the term "bashing", and a request for additional problem-solving tools, should probably be separate questions.
  $endgroup$
  – Blue
  17 hours ago
  

  
  
  
  

add a comment | 

6

1

$begingroup$

I am relatively new to the Olympiad style maths problems and I find the word "bashing" being thrown around a lot in the community and I haven't really understood it. I do know about "co-ordinate bashing" using Barycentric co-ordinates and complex numbers but I've also seen people use the term "bashing" in Number Theory, Combinatorial and Algebraic questions and don't know why.

My Question- What does the term "bashing" generally mean in Mathematics(in the broader sense)?

Also, if anyone could provide me some other powerful problem solving tools like Bashing which are useful for Maths Olympiads I would be highly obliged. By "Problem Solving Tools" I refer to concepts like Inversive, Projective and Homothety in geometry;LTE and Chinese Remainder Theorem in Number Theory; Vieta Root Jumping in Algebra. I only know a few of these and would like to see a comprehensive list of all(or most) of such important techniques. Even a link would suffice.

Thanks in advance.(First question on Stack Exchange).

contest-math problem-solving

share|cite|improve this question

asked 17 hours ago

Anurag SahaAnurag Saha

334

New contributor

Anurag Saha is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.

$endgroup$

• 
  
  
  

  
  1
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  $begingroup$
  Clarification of the term "bashing", and a request for additional problem-solving tools, should probably be separate questions.
  $endgroup$
  – Blue
  17 hours ago
  

  
  
  
  

add a comment | 

$begingroup$

I am relatively new to the Olympiad style maths problems and I find the word "bashing" being thrown around a lot in the community and I haven't really understood it. I do know about "co-ordinate bashing" using Barycentric co-ordinates and complex numbers but I've also seen people use the term "bashing" in Number Theory, Combinatorial and Algebraic questions and don't know why.

My Question- What does the term "bashing" generally mean in Mathematics(in the broader sense)?

Also, if anyone could provide me some other powerful problem solving tools like Bashing which are useful for Maths Olympiads I would be highly obliged. By "Problem Solving Tools" I refer to concepts like Inversive, Projective and Homothety in geometry;LTE and Chinese Remainder Theorem in Number Theory; Vieta Root Jumping in Algebra. I only know a few of these and would like to see a comprehensive list of all(or most) of such important techniques. Even a link would suffice.

Thanks in advance.(First question on Stack Exchange).

contest-math problem-solving

share|cite|improve this question

asked 17 hours ago

Anurag SahaAnurag Saha

334

New contributor

Anurag Saha is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.

$endgroup$

share|cite|improve this question

asked 17 hours ago

Anurag SahaAnurag Saha

334

New contributor

Anurag Saha is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.

share|cite|improve this question

asked 17 hours ago

Anurag SahaAnurag Saha

334

New contributor

Anurag Saha is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.

asked 17 hours ago

Anurag SahaAnurag Saha

334

New contributor

Anurag Saha is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.

asked 17 hours ago

Anurag SahaAnurag Saha

334

3 Answers
3

active

oldest

votes

7

$begingroup$

"Bashing" is a term for brute force methods, applied with very little cleverness. These are looked down on in contest mathematics, both because they aren't "pretty" and because they tend to take more time and computational effort than is practical in a live contest.

How do you tell if a solution is "bashing"? That's an entirely subjective judgment. The more you like it, the less likely you are to call it bashing.

What's the advantage of methods that might get called bashing? Reliability. Often, that method is something you know will work if you put enough time and effort into it. For example, consider the two top-rated answers to this recently active inequality problem; one is a short and sweet application of a classical inequality to eliminate the square roots, while the other is a very long slog of multivariable calculus and numerical root-finding, finding all twenty critical points of a function in order to find its minimum. The latter is certainly fairly bashy - I might not have gone through with it if I had realized how much work it was from the start - but it's also a complete solution, where the former isn't. After the simplification, that attempt stalls out with no clear next step.

share|cite|improve this answer

answered 17 hours ago

jmerryjmerry

12k1628

$endgroup$

• 
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  $begingroup$
  This isn't exclusively used in mathematics either. If you're driving a nail into a piece of wood with anything except for a hammer or naildriver, you're bashing it in. It's a common term for brute-forcing anything with whatever tools you got on hand, instead of doing it the right way. Except for those cases where bashing is the only right way, of-course.
  $endgroup$
  – Mast
  9 hours ago
  

  
  
  
  

add a comment | 

4

$begingroup$

I think in general the term bashing is used to describe an approach which is about applying a small set of manipulations over and over until you get an answer. These approaches usually don't require much insight.

One other trait of bashing which I can think of is that it is often very computational. This will usually go hand in hand with bashing's non-insightfulness.

The example you gave of using coordinate geometry to solve geo problems is a prime example of bashing as it is just a bunch of messy algebra after you translate the terms of the problem to coordinate geometry.

share|cite|improve this answer

answered 17 hours ago

Isaac BrowneIsaac Browne

4,86241234

$endgroup$

add a comment | 

2

$begingroup$

In inequalities examples of bashing they are:

1. Buffalo Way. See here: https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c6h522084




2. uvw . See here: https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c6h278791

share|cite|improve this answer

answered 17 hours ago

Michael RozenbergMichael Rozenberg

106k1894198

$endgroup$

add a comment | 

Your Answer

StackExchange.ifUsing("editor", function () {
return StackExchange.using("mathjaxEditing", function () {
StackExchange.MarkdownEditor.creationCallbacks.add(function (editor, postfix) {
StackExchange.mathjaxEditing.prepareWmdForMathJax(editor, postfix, [["$", "$"], ["\\(","\\)"]]);
});
});
}, "mathjax-editing");

StackExchange.ready(function() {
var channelOptions = {
tags: "".split(" "),
id: "69"
};
initTagRenderer("".split(" "), "".split(" "), channelOptions);

StackExchange.using("externalEditor", function() {
// Have to fire editor after snippets, if snippets enabled
if (StackExchange.settings.snippets.snippetsEnabled) {
StackExchange.using("snippets", function() {
createEditor();
});
}
else {
createEditor();
}
});

function createEditor() {
StackExchange.prepareEditor({
heartbeatType: 'answer',
autoActivateHeartbeat: false,
convertImagesToLinks: true,
noModals: true,
showLowRepImageUploadWarning: true,
reputationToPostImages: 10,
bindNavPrevention: true,
postfix: "",
imageUploader: {
brandingHtml: "Powered by u003ca class="icon-imgur-white" href="https://imgur.com/"u003eu003c/au003e",
contentPolicyHtml: "User contributions licensed under u003ca href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"u003ecc by-sa 3.0 with attribution requiredu003c/au003e u003ca href="https://stackoverflow.com/legal/content-policy"u003e(content policy)u003c/au003e",
allowUrls: true
},
noCode: true, onDemand: true,
discardSelector: ".discard-answer"
,immediatelyShowMarkdownHelp:true
});


}
});

Anurag Saha is a new contributor. Be nice, and check out our Code of Conduct.

draft saved

draft discarded

Sign up or log in

StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});

Sign up using Google

Sign up using Facebook

Sign up using Email and Password

Post as a guest

Name

Email

Required, but never shown

StackExchange.ready(
function () {
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2fmath.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f3134591%2fsoft-question-the-bashing-technique-and-other-powerful-techniques-for-olympiads%23new-answer', 'question_page');
}
);

Post as a guest

Name

Email

Required, but never shown

7

$begingroup$

"Bashing" is a term for brute force methods, applied with very little cleverness. These are looked down on in contest mathematics, both because they aren't "pretty" and because they tend to take more time and computational effort than is practical in a live contest.

How do you tell if a solution is "bashing"? That's an entirely subjective judgment. The more you like it, the less likely you are to call it bashing.

What's the advantage of methods that might get called bashing? Reliability. Often, that method is something you know will work if you put enough time and effort into it. For example, consider the two top-rated answers to this recently active inequality problem; one is a short and sweet application of a classical inequality to eliminate the square roots, while the other is a very long slog of multivariable calculus and numerical root-finding, finding all twenty critical points of a function in order to find its minimum. The latter is certainly fairly bashy - I might not have gone through with it if I had realized how much work it was from the start - but it's also a complete solution, where the former isn't. After the simplification, that attempt stalls out with no clear next step.

share|cite|improve this answer

answered 17 hours ago

jmerryjmerry

12k1628

$endgroup$

• 
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  $begingroup$
  This isn't exclusively used in mathematics either. If you're driving a nail into a piece of wood with anything except for a hammer or naildriver, you're bashing it in. It's a common term for brute-forcing anything with whatever tools you got on hand, instead of doing it the right way. Except for those cases where bashing is the only right way, of-course.
  $endgroup$
  – Mast
  9 hours ago
  

  
  
  
  

add a comment | 

7

$begingroup$

"Bashing" is a term for brute force methods, applied with very little cleverness. These are looked down on in contest mathematics, both because they aren't "pretty" and because they tend to take more time and computational effort than is practical in a live contest.

How do you tell if a solution is "bashing"? That's an entirely subjective judgment. The more you like it, the less likely you are to call it bashing.

What's the advantage of methods that might get called bashing? Reliability. Often, that method is something you know will work if you put enough time and effort into it. For example, consider the two top-rated answers to this recently active inequality problem; one is a short and sweet application of a classical inequality to eliminate the square roots, while the other is a very long slog of multivariable calculus and numerical root-finding, finding all twenty critical points of a function in order to find its minimum. The latter is certainly fairly bashy - I might not have gone through with it if I had realized how much work it was from the start - but it's also a complete solution, where the former isn't. After the simplification, that attempt stalls out with no clear next step.

share|cite|improve this answer

answered 17 hours ago

jmerryjmerry

12k1628

$endgroup$

• 
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  $begingroup$
  This isn't exclusively used in mathematics either. If you're driving a nail into a piece of wood with anything except for a hammer or naildriver, you're bashing it in. It's a common term for brute-forcing anything with whatever tools you got on hand, instead of doing it the right way. Except for those cases where bashing is the only right way, of-course.
  $endgroup$
  – Mast
  9 hours ago
  

  
  
  
  

add a comment | 

$begingroup$

"Bashing" is a term for brute force methods, applied with very little cleverness. These are looked down on in contest mathematics, both because they aren't "pretty" and because they tend to take more time and computational effort than is practical in a live contest.

How do you tell if a solution is "bashing"? That's an entirely subjective judgment. The more you like it, the less likely you are to call it bashing.

What's the advantage of methods that might get called bashing? Reliability. Often, that method is something you know will work if you put enough time and effort into it. For example, consider the two top-rated answers to this recently active inequality problem; one is a short and sweet application of a classical inequality to eliminate the square roots, while the other is a very long slog of multivariable calculus and numerical root-finding, finding all twenty critical points of a function in order to find its minimum. The latter is certainly fairly bashy - I might not have gone through with it if I had realized how much work it was from the start - but it's also a complete solution, where the former isn't. After the simplification, that attempt stalls out with no clear next step.

share|cite|improve this answer

answered 17 hours ago

jmerryjmerry

12k1628

$endgroup$

share|cite|improve this answer

answered 17 hours ago

jmerryjmerry

12k1628

answered 17 hours ago

jmerryjmerry

12k1628

answered 17 hours ago

jmerryjmerry

12k1628

4

$begingroup$

I think in general the term bashing is used to describe an approach which is about applying a small set of manipulations over and over until you get an answer. These approaches usually don't require much insight.

One other trait of bashing which I can think of is that it is often very computational. This will usually go hand in hand with bashing's non-insightfulness.

The example you gave of using coordinate geometry to solve geo problems is a prime example of bashing as it is just a bunch of messy algebra after you translate the terms of the problem to coordinate geometry.

share|cite|improve this answer

answered 17 hours ago

Isaac BrowneIsaac Browne

4,86241234

$endgroup$

add a comment | 

4

$begingroup$

I think in general the term bashing is used to describe an approach which is about applying a small set of manipulations over and over until you get an answer. These approaches usually don't require much insight.

One other trait of bashing which I can think of is that it is often very computational. This will usually go hand in hand with bashing's non-insightfulness.

The example you gave of using coordinate geometry to solve geo problems is a prime example of bashing as it is just a bunch of messy algebra after you translate the terms of the problem to coordinate geometry.

share|cite|improve this answer

answered 17 hours ago

Isaac BrowneIsaac Browne

4,86241234

$endgroup$

add a comment | 

$begingroup$

I think in general the term bashing is used to describe an approach which is about applying a small set of manipulations over and over until you get an answer. These approaches usually don't require much insight.

One other trait of bashing which I can think of is that it is often very computational. This will usually go hand in hand with bashing's non-insightfulness.

The example you gave of using coordinate geometry to solve geo problems is a prime example of bashing as it is just a bunch of messy algebra after you translate the terms of the problem to coordinate geometry.

share|cite|improve this answer

answered 17 hours ago

Isaac BrowneIsaac Browne

4,86241234

$endgroup$

share|cite|improve this answer

answered 17 hours ago

Isaac BrowneIsaac Browne

4,86241234

answered 17 hours ago

Isaac BrowneIsaac Browne

4,86241234

answered 17 hours ago

Isaac BrowneIsaac Browne

4,86241234

2

$begingroup$

In inequalities examples of bashing they are:

1. Buffalo Way. See here: https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c6h522084




2. uvw . See here: https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c6h278791

share|cite|improve this answer

answered 17 hours ago

Michael RozenbergMichael Rozenberg

106k1894198

$endgroup$

add a comment | 

2

$begingroup$

In inequalities examples of bashing they are:

1. Buffalo Way. See here: https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c6h522084




2. uvw . See here: https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c6h278791

share|cite|improve this answer

answered 17 hours ago

Michael RozenbergMichael Rozenberg

106k1894198

$endgroup$

add a comment | 

$begingroup$

In inequalities examples of bashing they are:

1. Buffalo Way. See here: https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c6h522084




2. uvw . See here: https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c6h278791

share|cite|improve this answer

answered 17 hours ago

Michael RozenbergMichael Rozenberg

106k1894198

$endgroup$

share|cite|improve this answer

answered 17 hours ago

Michael RozenbergMichael Rozenberg

106k1894198

answered 17 hours ago

Michael RozenbergMichael Rozenberg

106k1894198

answered 17 hours ago

Michael RozenbergMichael Rozenberg

106k1894198