OFF ON A TANGENT
A Fortnightly Electronic Newsletter from the Hope College Department of Mathematics
November 29, 2006 Vol. 5, No. 7
http://www.math.hope.edu/newsletter.html



Final Colloquium of the Semester this Thursday

One branch of the field of geometric probability involves devising methods of generating geometric figures randomly.  One can then study the expected geometric properties of such objects, as well as the distributions of their numerical measurements.  In tomorrow's colloquium, Prof. Stephenson will give examples of several such procedures related to the random generation of polygons in the plane.  Along the way, he will present some results due to his former undergraduate research students.  He will also highlight some of open questions that are interests of his.


  Join us for Tea Time on Thursdays before colloquia

As part of our colloquium series this year, the mathematics department will host a "tea time" in the Reading Room (VWF 222) at 3:45 pm.  If tea isn't really your cup of tea, have no fear -- we'll provide some other beverages and snacks, too.  So please join us for a little food and fellowship before you go to the colloquia.  It'll be a great time to chat with the speaker, your professors and other students.

Book Sale!

There is currently a mathematics book sale going on
in the Reading Room (VWF 222).
The books are located in boxes by the windows. 
The cost of each book is just 50 cents. 
You may pay for books in the main office.




Problem Solvers of the Fortnight 

In anticipation of a home-cooked turkey dinner, many students chomped their way to a winning strategy in the Problem of the Fortnight in the last issue.  The problem involved the game of Chomp, a two-person game played on a 10 x 10 board in which players chomp a square on the board and thereby remove all the squares above and to the right of the square they chose.  The question was whether either player could force a win, and if so, how?  A winning strategy is available to the first player.  If the first player removes the square that is one square above and to the right of the dreaded poison square, thereby removing all squares on the board except for the leftmost column and the bottom row, and then mimics whatever the second player does, the first player can force the second player to chomp the poison square and lose the game. 

Chompers of the Fortnight include: Chad Rector, Kevin Butterfield, John Molenhouse, Forrest Gordon, Katie Johnson, James Daly, Stephanie Pasek, Anonymous mathematician (with bad handwriting), James Richardson, David Herman, Dirk Van Bruggen, Jason Folkert, Kaitlyn Kopke, Rachel Hashimoto, Steven Goodrich, Jacob Lyons, Amanda Allen, Emily Westrate, Ricky Kelley, Steven Barbachyn, Lucas Osterbur, Kate Stacey, Deborah Denby, Clint Jepkema, Matt Ray, Conrad Tobert, Chris Tidmarsh, Trevor Gruys, Sarah Jones, Ben Miller, Bryan Kinsey, Lisa Borton, Dave Sherry, Ryan Summers, Sarah Havlik and Amber Hoerer (who submitted her solution on a Hershey bar!  Thanks, Amber!).  Congratulations to all!


Problem of the Fortnight 

The last Problem of the Fortnight of the semester comes to us from Mr. Vern Hoekstra of Zeeland, MI.  Mr. Hoekstra writes:

We have been playing golf from time to time with 16 people.  In our group there are four levels of handicaps -- let's call them A, B, C, and D --  and there are four people with each handicap level -- so we could let A1, A2, A3 and A4 represent the four people with handicap level A, and so on for the other handicap levels.  On the first day we might have: 

Team 1
 A1
 B1
 C1
 D1
Team 2
 A2
 B2
 C2
 D2
Team 3
 A3
 B3
 C3
 D3
Team 4
 A4
 B4
 C4
 D4

Is it possible for us to play four times a week so that each foursome has one person of each handicap level and so that no two people end up on the same team during the week? 

If you have an answer for Mr. Hoekstra, please write your solution on the back of a golf scorecard and drop it in the Problem of the Fortnight slot outside Professor Pearson's office (VWF 212) by 3:00 on Friday, December 8.  As always, please remember to put your name, the name(s) of your professor(s) and the name of the math class(es) you are taking -- e.g. G.O. Metry, Professor Archimedes, Math 351 -- on your paper.


Got a Math Question?

Ask Elvis ...

... email him at elvis@hope.edu

Dear Friends,

I heard that Google recently spent $1.65 billion in stock to buy YouTube. Being the Internet savvy dog that I am, I thought I would take a look at what kind of website $1.65 billion would buy.

They do have quite a collection of videos to view. I saw one of a dancing guy wearing an Orange Crush t-shirt. In fact, think I saw that same guy on campus a few weeks ago. There were lots of videos of people putting Mentoes into Coke. That’s always a good time! I even saw a clip of Hope playing Calvin in hockey. The outcome of this one was not the best.

But is all this worth $1.65 billion. Maybe. If they just had a mathematical dog. Well guess what? They did. I watched a clip about Maggie the Mathematical Dog. While she didn’t do calculus or even trigonometry, she did do simple arithmetic. She was able to add, subtract, and multiply. That is impressive enough for me. You could never get a cat to do that.

If you have some extra time before you start studying for finals, you might want to check it out. But don’t spend too much time there. Make sure you leave yourself plenty of time to study for those exams. (I know that a certain professor that I share an office with has some very interesting exam questions ready for some of you!)

I didn't get any questions to answer this past fortnight. Hopefully we will have some for next semester. Good luck on your finals and have a great Christmas break!




The more I see of men, the better I like my dog.
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)