Archive for 2008

DO. Proofs Puzzles and Conundra!

Burger answers his puzzle and tells us more…

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DN. Ed Burger’s Trouser Puzzle

Prof Ed Burger of Williams College discusses the mathematics of proofs and puzzles, and a problem with his pants.

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DM. On Codes, Primes and Kings

In which we conclude our conversation and thwart the wicked King.

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DL. The Wicked King Problem

In which we discuss mattress preservation, group theory, and the problem of the Wicked King.

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Greetings From The Math Factor

(We sent this out as an email, if we have your address, but in many cases it was blocked as mathspam)

========== Greetings From the Math Factor ==========
========== mathfactor.uark.edu ==========

We love hearing from our listeners, and enjoy the great ideas and Read the rest of this entry »

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DK. Flipping the Mattress

We consider the ways in which we might preserve a mattress. Every six months, as we all know, you should rotate or flip your mattress so that it wears out evenly. Is there a simple, easy to follow procedure for ensuring that the mattress cycles through all four possible orientations?

(This is really a lead-in for a discussion about Group Theory.)

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DJ. Pegg on Numb3rs

We catch Ed Pegg, puzzler extraordinaire , as he is going over a script for the TV show Numb3rs.

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Follow Up: Prime Dice

We also asked, on this week’s segment how to label the faces of some ordinary dice, with twelve different numbers (we did say different didn’t we?) so that every roll produces a prime number. This puzzle is from the fascinating site www.primepuzzles.net. Don’t peek!

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DI. Dice Games

A young listener (or really her father, on behalf of a young listener) wrote us:

Two players each choose any 10 digits from 1 to 36.

Read the rest of this entry »

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DH. Ice Cream Cake

(I have no idea why cakes are so popular in math puzzles, but here is another conundrum)

Peter Winkler gives us one more puzzle from his book Mathematical Mind Benders and tells us a little bit about why good puzzles are like good jokes.

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