In his spare time, Morgan Hill resident Steve Dinh solves the world’s most difficult math problems.
Dinh, also known by his Vietnamese name Vo Duc Dien, has discovered solutions to more than 700 unsolved problems used in past years of the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), the annual world championship mathematics competition for high school students.
“I have solved problems that are 20 to 30 years old that had never been solved before,” Dinh, 51, said. “One of the problems I solved was even older than me.”
Dinh has published four college level math books, including “Narrative Approaches to the International Mathematical Problems” and “The Hard Mathematical Olympiad Problems and Their Solutions”, to thoroughly explain to students all over the world how he was able to solve seemingly unsolvable problems.
The books, which primarily include geometry, algebra and calculus problems, are featured in more than 2,000 libraries around the globe and in the libraries of prestigious colleges including Stanford, Princeton and Harvard universities.
Not only does Dinh solve problems and write books explaining how, he writes and assigns mathematical problems, which are used to determine the final group of six students who will represent the United States in the annual IMO competitions. He acts in the same capacity for other countries, primarily in Latin America, as well.
“I wrote a problem that was used in the 2013 International Mathematical Olympiad which was in Santa Marta, Colombia this past July,” Dinh said. “I even made a problem for a competition Brazil had to select the top math teacher of the year.”
In addition to his involvement with IMO, Dinh makes up problems for math tournaments at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard and Stanford universities.
Dinh, who was born and raised in Vietnam, said he was “a good student” and competed in several elite math competitions as a teenager. Dinh even competed in the Vietnamese National Competition, the competition right before the IMO, and would have qualified for the Olympiad, however, left Vietnam at 18 to escape the Communist government.
He received an undergraduate degree from Cleveland State in electrical engineering and a master’s degree in the same subject from Northwestern University. Dinh has lived in Morgan Hill for 10 years and is the owner of “Jimmy Dinh’s drafting,” an architecture firm. Prior to entering the architecture industry, Dinh lived in South San Jose and was the CEO of Pleyner Software, which is now out of business.
“I haven’t gotten involved with math for the money – this is like a hobby for me,” said Dinh, who has donated most of his books to the libraries where they are featured. “I do it because I want to help students learn.”
Dinh’s interest in solving the unsolved problems of the IMO began four years ago when his wife, Chau Tran, traveled to Vietnam and returned to the United States with a magazine that contained information on formerly unsolved IMO problems.
Dinh said that while his 13-year-old daughter, Catherine, and his 10-year-old son, Alan, participate in extracurricular activities such as tae kwon do, he utilizes his waiting time by solving math problems.
“While my kids do martial arts for an hour or I’m waiting in San Jose on Sundays for my daughter to finish Girl Scouts, I use that time to try and work out problems,” Dinh said.
In what other spare time he has, Dinh co-edits the world’s largest math website – cut-the-knot.org – with Alexander Bogolmony and has written several scientific papers, including one that proved the moon is not 100 percent round during full moon. He also volunteers to tutor kids in the GATE program at Nordstrom, where his son attends school.
Dinh has been a licensed recreational pilot for 20 years and was trained at Reid-Hillview Airport in San Jose, which is where Jason Dahl, the pilot of United Airlines Flight 93 that crashed into a Pennsylvania field on Sept. 11, 2001, was trained.
“I haven’t flown in the past few years, but I used to fly to Monterey for lunch some times,” Dinh said.
To download one of Dinh’s books or papers, visit: independent.academia.edu/SteveDinh.
