Can polynomials help invent new dice?
In my last blog post, I explained how to quickly and easily work out, say, the number of ways to get a 10 on three dice, just by multiplying together some polynomials. It doesn’t have to be real dice of course. The trick works just as well for spinners, balls in a hat, or computer random number generators.
Can polynomials help calculate probabilities?
Imagine you have two coins. One side is blank, and one has a single dot. You flip the coins. How many ways can you get 0 dots? How many ways can you get 1 dot? How many ways can you get 2 dots?
If you got answers like “1 way / 2 ways / 1 way” you got it right.
Some time ago, I posted a fractions puzzle involving flat bread. You can read about it here. Here’s the question – if I take a flat piece of bread, and give you half, then you give me back a quarter, then I give you back an eighth, and you give me back 1/16, and so on ad infinitum, how much of the original flat bread do I have?
What shall I have on my toast?
I have four different things I can spread on my toast. If I want to taste them all, I need four slices of toast.
As a kid, I watched Sesame Street. One segment was on sharing. Bert has a cookie, and Ernie comes and asks him “will you share your cookie with me, Bert?”
For those of you who don’t know what a bagel is, it’s a bun with a hole in the middle. A doughnut made out of bread dough. If you can’t get hold of a bagel for the puzzle on this page, use a doughnut instead.
We accidentally borrowed a library book for my younger son the other day – the “12 Bugs of Christmas“, a delightful little pop-up book.
The Mushar people are amongst the poorest of the world’s poor. If you search the web, you’ll find descriptions of these people that range from encyclopaedic to heartbreaking. Their problem is not just that they are poor. They also live in the poorest state in India. Worst of all, they are considered “untouchables” in the Hindu caste system.
I recently received a tough puzzle as a gift from my brother. The name of the puzzle is “Orchard”, and so far, indeed, it seems quite tough! The first step in solving it is to solve this puzzle :
Here’s an old fraction puzzle. I have no idea who invented this, or whether it is decades or centuries old, but it’s always been a favorite conundrum of mine.
It starts with a man who wills his possessions to his three sons. The will specifies that the eldest son should get half his fortune, the second son a quarter, and the youngest son a sixth.
