Posts in Maths Problem Solving
Parallel (Simon Singh): The Rhind Papyrus
Parallel (Simon Singh): The Rhind Papyrus

The Ancient Egyptian Rhind Papyrus dates back to around 1550 BC and is full of mathematical ideas and puzzles. Not surprisingly, it has a section about calculating the slopes of pyramids.

I particularly like that it opens with the statement: “Directions for Attaining the Knowledge of All Dark Things”. That’s quite a way to describe mathematics.

The papyrus has a great deal about “Egyptian fractions”, which means that every fraction has to be described in terms of other fractions which have the numerator 1.

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Education, Maths, Maths Problem Solving, Parallel, School, Simon Singh, Word ProblemsSarah NorrisLando EducationSimon Singh, Parallel, maths, mathematics, maths problem of the day, maths problems, mathematical puzzle, Rhind Papyrus, ancient, ancient Egyptians, Egypians, fractions, BC, puzzles, maths puzzles, mathematical puzzles, denominator, St Ives Riddle, riddleComment
Parallel (Simon Singh): Googol
Parallel (Simon Singh): Googol

The mathematical term “googol” was invented in 1920 by 9-year-old Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner. A googol is 10100, which means it is written as 1 followed by one hundred zeroes.

The fact that it can be written in such a compact form, 10100, is deceiving, because it represents a phenomenonally gigantic number of mind-blowing proportions. A googol is about one hundred billion billion times bigger than the number of particles in the visible universe (1080).

Although the company and search engine Google is spelt differently, it based its name on the huge number googol, because its ambition was to provide users with huge amounts of information.

  1. What is googol squared?

  2. What is √(googol)?

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Education, Maths, Maths Problem Solving, School, Parallel, Simon Singh, Word ProblemsSarah NorrisLando EducationLando Education, Lando, maths, maths problems, mathematics, googol, Simon Singh, Parallel, word problemsComment
Art of Problem Solving (AoPS): True or False
Art of Problem Solving (AoPS): True or False

Each statement is either true or false. How many of the following statements are true?

1. The answers to statements 2 and 3 are different.

2. The answers to statements 3 and 4 are different.

3. The answers to statements 4 and 5 are different.

4. The answers to statements 5 and 6 are different.

5. The answers to statements 6 and 7 are different.

6. The answers to statements 7 and 8 are different.

7. The answers to statements 8 and 1 are the same.

8. The answers to statements 1 and 2 are the same.

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AoPS, Art of Problem Solving, Education, Maths, Maths Problem Solving, School, Word ProblemsSarah NorrisLando EducationLando Education, Lando, maths, AoPS, Art of Problem Solving, school, true or false, word problems, maths problemsComment
PARALLEL (SIMON SINGH): Kaprekar constant
PARALLEL (SIMON SINGH): Kaprekar constant

  • Pick any 4 digit number (as long as the digits are not ALL the same).

  • Put the digits in ascending order and descending order to create two numbers.

  • Subtract the small number from the big number, to create a next stage number.

  • Then repeat the process with the new number

  • Eventually you end up with 6,174.

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Education, Maths, Maths Problem Solving, Parallel, School, Simon Singh, Word ProblemsSarah NorrisLando EducationParallel, Simon Singh, Kaprekar Constant, Roger Bowley, NumberphileComment
AoPS: Don't Flip Out
AoPS: Don't Flip Out

Alex has 25 discs that are black on one side and white on the other. He arranges them on a 5 x 5 grid so that all the white sides are showing.

A move consists of taking any three consecutive discs in a row or column and flipping them over. You want the discs to make the checkerboard coloring shown below.

From the initial all-white position, what is the smallest number of moves needed to get to the checkerboard position?

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AoPS, Art of Problem Solving, Education, Maths, Maths Problem Solving, School, Word ProblemsSarah NorrisLando EducationAoPS, Art of Problem Solving, maths, maths problems, mathematical puzzle, Don't Flip OutComment
Parallel (Simon Singh): Happy Numbers
Parallel (Simon Singh): Happy Numbers

So for a number to be happy, just take the digits, square each digit and add all the squares to create a new number. Then repeat the process with the new number, and continue until you end up with the number 1 or find the numbers stuck in a repeating loop that does not contain 1.

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Maths, Parallel, Simon Singh, Word Problems, School, Education, Maths Problem SolvingSarah NorrisLando Educationhappy numbers, Parallel, Simon Singh, word problems, maths, maths problems, week 1Comment
Oxford Mathematics (Josh Bull) : Can maths tell us how to win at Fantasy Football?
Oxford Mathematics (Josh Bull) : Can maths tell us how to win at Fantasy Football?

Oxford Mathematician Josh Bull won the 2019-2020 Premier League Fantasy Football competition from nearly 8 million entrants. So how did he do it? Did he by any chance use mathematics? In this lecture Josh shows just how useful maths can be, not just in dealing with serious issues, but in dealing with the things that we do and enjoy in our everyday lives.

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Education, Maths, Maths Problem Solving, School, Fantasy Football, Oxford MathematicsSarah NorrisLando Educationmaths, mathematics, fantasy football, Premier League, Oxford Mathematics, Josh Bull, logic, strategyComment
UKMT: The Tower of Hanoi Maths Problem
UKMT: The Tower of Hanoi Maths Problem

UKMT volunteer Fraser Heywood kindly shared this video of his favourite mathematical puzzle with us. The Tower of Hanoi is a mathematical puzzle and a recursive algorithm, where the objective is to move an entire stack of disks from the source position to another position.

The three rules are:

- Only one disk can be moved at a time.

- A disk can only be moved if it is the uppermost disk on a stack.

- No larger disk may be placed on top of a smaller disk.

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UKMT, Word Problems, School, Maths Problem Solving, Maths, EducationSarah NorrisLando EducationUKMT, volunteer, Fraser Heywood, mathematical puzzle, Tower of Hanoi, recursive algorithm, algorithmComment