FAQs

  1. Mathathon is a registered student organization at Caltech. Its decisions are made by its executive board, which consists of undergraduate and graduate students currently enrolled at Caltech. The board does not receive monetary compensation from Mathathon or its sponsors.
  2. The goal of Mathathon is to promote responsible use of AI in mathematics. We are committed to the following principles:
    1. Equity. We welcome participants from all backgrounds. We admit applicants on the basis of their perceived mathematical ability. We will try our best to cover their travel expenses. We will provide every team with the same computational resources.
    2. Transparency. We will record and open source all AI chat logs produced at this event. We ask participants to declare AI usage in any publication that results from this event.
    3. Understanding. We require participants to present their results orally and answer questions from our judges. All presentations will be recorded.
    4. Verification. We will publish results, presentations, and chat logs to mathdb.com for the entire mathematical community to review. We encourage participants to formalize their results.
  3. We believe mathdb.com is not a replacement for peer-reviewed journals. We encourage participants to publish their results to arxiv.org after they have verified their work, checked all citations, and declared AI usage. Participants retain ownership and responsibility over the work they produce.
  4. We acknowledge that our viewpoint on AI and mathematics is incomplete. We invite both AI-positive and AI-skeptic mathematicians to attend this event and speak on the ethics of AI in mathematics. We also welcome comments on our rules and judging process, which are public in the Mathathon rules and judging rubric.
  5. The main track — solve and explain an open problem in mathematics — is evaluated by a panel of independent academics without involvement from sponsors. Sponsors may support a side track relevant to their expertise, like theoretical CS, and provide judges for it. A result may qualify for multiple tracks.
  6. We aim to finalize speakers, judges, and participants by the end of September. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis. We’ll attempt to get back to international applicants sooner. We cannot help with visa sponsorships.