Archive for the ‘Number Theory’ Category

Sam and Polly and How I Know the Answer.

Sunday, November 23rd, 2008

So anyway, I’m too lazy to write an original post, so I’ll just copy a draft of my report that I turned in for this project.

The Problem:

An alien appears to two mathematicians, Sam and Polly.  The alien says, “I’m thinking of two numbers, X and Y with 3 <= X <= Y <= 97.  I will tell their sum to Sam and their product to Polly.”  The alien does this and then disappears.  The following conversation occurs:
Sam:  You don’t know what X and Y are.
Polly:  That’s true, but now I do.
Sam:  And now I do too.
Find X and Y.
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Posted in Math, Number Theory, Uncategorized | 5 Comments »

It’s a mathstorm

Tuesday, October 14th, 2008

Well it’s been a long time since I’ve had any real time to do much posting here.  The senior design course I’m in is sucking up a large proportion of my time.  I don’t see this changing any time soon, either.

Anyway, as of Monday, we were assigned projects in the Number Theory class I’m taking.  I chose to solve a “difficult” problem.  It goes like this:

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Posted in Math, Number Theory | 7 Comments »