That the worm falls off the end of the rope depends on the fact that the incredible
harmonic series

1 + 1/2 + 1/3 + 1/4 + . . .
diverges to infinity, growing as large as you please!

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Dana Richards, editor of Martin Gardner’s Colossal Book of Short Puzzles and Problems explains why the worm makes it, in only about 15,092,688,622,113,788,323,693,563,264,538,101,449,859,497 steps! (Give or take a few.) This incredible fact depends on the mysterious Harmonic Series, discussed a little more in our next post.

We explore Barry Cipra’s Tag Deal a bit more…

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Frank Morgan chats about math and gives us the solution to his bubble puzzle. If you’re in the area, don’t miss his lecture, Thursday April 10, at 7:30 pm in POSC 211!

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We discuss, among other things, whether all mathematicians are liars.

Send us your favorite paradoxes of this kind and we’ll report back on April 15.

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Burger answers his puzzle and tells us more…

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

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

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(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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Peter Winkler tell us which full house to choose, and asks: How long must we wait until all the ants fall off the rod?

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