Six hundred of the cleverest people in the world are sitting in a tent in Bath, in the west of England, listening to a man standing at a wooden lectern who is extolling their achievements.
He announces that there is a Fields medallist among them. Eager eyes try to spot the recipient of the world’s most prestigious prize in mathematics.
This is the closing ceremony of the 60th International Mathematical Olympiad, the annual world championship maths competition for secondary school-age students. It is late July, and 621 teenagers representing 112 countries are waiting for medals to be distributed. They have spent days working on mathematical problems that many university professors would fail to solve.