Brigadoon The northern European sky is often ambiguous. Patches of intense blue alternate with lowering grays. Fog conceals the landscape, lifting to reveal sky and water, then descending like a huge curtain. An enormous glass wall, one...
moreBrigadoon The northern European sky is often ambiguous. Patches of intense blue alternate with lowering grays. Fog conceals the landscape, lifting to reveal sky and water, then descending like a huge curtain. An enormous glass wall, one side of a hotel dining room, highlights the drama of the sky over the North Sea in the German city of Bremerhaven. The jury of the 2009 International Mathematical Olympiad (the IMO), representatives of 104 countries, trickles in. The conversation reveals a community coming together, a community that, like the fabled Scottish village Brigadoon, comes to life once a year, for just ten days. Old friends greet each other, fill each other in on personal news, on prospects for their team, on the uncertainties of international travel. They sort themselves by language: English, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, and many smaller communities. It is a peculiarity of today’s political geography that official languages are typically shared by two or more countri...