OFF ON A TANGENT

A Fortnightly Electronic Newsletter from the Hope College Department of Mathematics

September 6, 2006	Vol. 5, No. 1
http://www.math.hope.edu/newsletter.html

Hope Floats Kegger Next Thursday

Please join the mathematics faculty and fellow math students for the second annual Hope Floats Root Beer Keg party on the covered walkway of VanderWerf Hall (outside the lecture halls) on Thursday, September 14, from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m.   Enjoy a tasty beverage and participate in a competition. You may win a valuable prize!  Also, there will be a special demonstration. . . .  Intrigued?  Come next Thursday and find out what it is! 


Problem of the Fortnight

Having had a relaxing and rejuvenating summer, The Problem of the Fortnight is back for another season of problem-solving fun!

Ten (not necessarily distinct) positive integers have the property that if all but one of them are added, the possible results (depending on which one is omitted) are: 
            82, 83, 84, 85, 87, 89, 90, 91, 92. 
(This is not a misprint; there are only nine possible results.)  What are the ten integers?

Write your solution on a (not necessarily regular) decagon and drop it in the Problem of the Fortnight slot outside Dr. Pearson's office (VWF 212) by 3:00 p.m. on Friday, September 15.  In addition to your name, please write your class and your professor's name (e.g. Math 132 - Dr. Pennings) on your solution.



A Million Dollar Prize and a Fields Medal?  No Thanks -- I'm Retiring.

Grigory (Grisha) Perelman of the Steklov Institute in St. Petersburg created a stir in mathematical circles this year when he announced that he had solved the Poincare Conjecture, a problem that resisted the best efforts of the world's finest mathematicians for over a century and was one of seven problems on which the Clay Institute in Boston had placed a $1,000,000 bounty.  As the worldwide mathematics community comes to a consensus about the validity of Perelman's proof, mathematicians and non-mathematicians alike are struggling to understand the latest befuddling chapters of the unfolding story.  Last December, Perelman announced he was retiring from the Steklov Institute and from mathematics altogether.  Last Tuesday in Madrid, Spain, Perelman was one of four mathematicians to be awarded the Fields Medal, the highest honor given to mathematicians, but he refused to attend the ceremonies.  Astonishingly Perelman also seems uninterested in claiming the $1M prize offered by the Clay Institute, although the prize has not yet been offered to him and he has declined to say whether he will accept it if offered.  For more on Perelman, please see the articles at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Perelman and http://mathworld.wolfram.com/news/2003-04-15/poincare/, and for a recent New Yorker article about this unusual story, please visit: http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060828fa_fact2.    

Got a Math Question? Ask Elvis ... ... email him at elvis@hope.edu

Dear Friends,

Welcome back!  It was lonely here all summer without you.  While I do get some attention from the summer research students, it is always nice to “play to a packed house.”

I had a great summer.  I had lots of recreation (i.e. chasing Mittens, the cat next door).  I also enjoyed some time away by traveling to the U.P. and was able to help get another research article written.  You all know that I am the dog that knows calculus, but did you know that I also know bifurcation?

Being the smart dog that I am, I was reading the newspaper a week or so ago and found an article about the International High IQ Society.  They have a 25-question test online that they are using to identify the world’s smartest person.  You can find this test at http://www.highiqsociety.org.  (When you go there, click on the World’s Smartest Person Challenge icon.)  If you win, you will receive a lifetime membership to the High IQ Society and $500 . . . if you choose to accept it, that is. 

There are some very interesting questions on this test.  Many involve a young lady named Lola.  For example, in one question Lola invites thirteen friends to her apartment for a series of parties.  She has one table that seats eight and another that seats six.  The question is if all fourteen girls want to sit with everyone, how many parties do they have to attend?  This seems like an easy question to me.  If they just go to one party and the move around a lot I think that this can be accomplished.

In another question, they have a word pile and ask which word does not belong.  The words are marmalade, sandwich, shrapnel, asphalt, diesel, boycott, etc.   Clearly these are all things you can eat except boycott.

You should take a look at this test.  If you need any help with any of these questions or if you have any questions about mathematics send me an email.  My address is elvis@hope.edu.

      ~ Elvis

Mathematical discoveries, small or great, are never born of spontaneous generation. They always presuppose a soil seeded with preliminary knowledge and well prepared by labor, both conscious and subconscious.   ~ Henri Poincare