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Curl
Residue
Art Gallery
Genus
Existence
Japanese
Ham sandwich
- Whose Last?
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Fermat's
They are all proven mathematical theorems.
Fermat's Last Theorem: A theorem first proposed
by Fermat in the form of a note scribbled in the margin of his copy
of the ancient Greek text Arithmetica by Diophantus. The scribbled
note was discovered posthumously, and the original is now lost.
However, a copy was preserved in a book published by Fermat's son.
In the note, Fermat claimed to have discovered a proof that the
Diophantine equation x^n + y^n = z^n has no integer solutions for
n > 2 and x,y,z not equal to zero.
Thanks for the blast from the past Mike.
I remember several of these from my degree, 15 years ago. I could
almost still prove the Residue Theorem.
Curl Theorem: A special case of Stokes' theorem
with a formula to complicated to reproduce here
Residue Theorem: This amazing theorem says
that the value of a contour integral for any contour in the complex
plane depends only on the properties of a few very special points
inside the contour.
Art Gallery Theorem: Also called Chvátal's
art gallery theorem. If the walls of an art gallery are made up
of n straight line segments, then the entire gallery can always
be supervised by [n/3] watchmen placed in corners, where [] is the
floor function. This theorem was proved by Chvátal (1975). It was
conjectured that an art gallery with n walls and h holes requires
[(n+h)/3] watchmen, which has now been proven by Bjorling-Sachs
and Souvaine (1991, 1995) and Hoffman et al. (1991).
Genus Theorem: The Diophantine equation x^2
+ y^2 = p can be solved for p a prime iff p=1 (mod4) or p = 2.
Existence Theorem: A type of theorem stating
the existence of an object, such as the solution to a problem or
equation. Could this be specifically Picard's Existence Theorem,
which is again too complex for this page
Japanese Theorem: Let a convex cyclic polygon
be triangulated in any manner, and draw the incircle to each triangle
so constructed. Then the sum of the inradii is a constant independent
of the triangulation chosen.
Ham Sandwich Theorem: The volumes of any
n n-dimensional solids can always be simultaneously bisected by
a (n-1)-dimensional hyperplane.
Neal
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Mike
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| 2 |
A tale of two cities? Or is it?
(Click for a closer look)
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Image deleted
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Image deleted
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A tale of twin cities? Minneapolis / St.Paul,
MN, USA and São Paulo, Brazil.
Alan
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| 3 |
According to the traditional song how many people will turn up at your
front door on the twelfth day of Christmas?
Two possible answers here. Really, just
12, the drumming drummers, because all the rest is just the repetition
of the chain refrain, telling who arrived yesterday, and the day
before that, and so on. But if you take a more generous view of
the donor, then: twelve drummers drumming, eleven pipers piping,
ten lords a-leaping, nine ladies dancing, and eight maids a-milking,
plus sundry birds, jewellery, and vegetation, for a total of 50
people, not including an unspecified number of delivery persons.
Assuming, of course, my true love has the very good sense to stay
away...
Alan
11 people. Apparently the "partridge in the
pear tree" symbolizes Jesus and should be symbolized by the centrepiece
and the remaining 11 items symbolize gifts to 11 guests. What crap!!
Of course, if you are expecting the Magi,
then there will be only 3 visitors at your front door on the twelfth
day of Christmas.
If you reading the song literally and "people"
refer to humans, then there would be Eight maids a-milking, Nine
ladies dancing, Ten lords a-leaping, Eleven pipers piping and Twelve
drummers drumming = 50 visitors
The Twelve Days of Christmas
On the first day of Christmas, my true
love sent to me
A partridge in a pear tree.
On the second day of Christmas, my true
love sent to me
Two turtle doves, And a partridge in a
pear tree.
On the third day of Christmas, my true
love sent to me
Three French hens, Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.
...Four calling birds...
...Five golden rings...
...Six geese a-laying...
...Seven swans a-swimming...
...Eight maids a-milking...
...Nine ladies dancing...
...Ten lords a-leaping...
...Eleven pipers piping...
...Twelve drummers drumming...
Venky
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I see Venky covered all the angles with that answer (even though he got
49 on his first draft before I told him to check his addition!) which
should serve as a good lesson, everybody is entitled to a little bit of
a clue or a hint. If you give me some idea what you are struggling with
I may be able to offer some help to ease the agony.
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| 4 |
In a land far away, iron is called "farpsi". What is "fefsili"? What
do they call tin?
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Take the numbers corresponding to the positions
of the letters in the English alphabet. Substitute the number with
the symbol of the chemical element whose Atomic Number it is.
I-R-O-N would correspond to 9-18-15-14, which
in turn would correspond to F-Ar-P-Si (Fluorine, Argon, Phosphorus
and Silicon). So iron is called farpsi.
Working backwards, "fefsili" = Fe-F-Si-Li
(Iron, Fluorine, Silicon and Lithium), which would correspond to
26-9-14-3 which in turn would correspond to Z-I-N-C. So "fefsili"
is zinc.
Tin = T-I-N = 20-9-14 = Ca-F-Si (Calcium,
Fluorine and Silicon). Tin would therefore be called cafsi.
Venky
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This question caused much hair loss! Several people were given a clue
to this in the form that it was something that could be deduced, which
at least made it clear that it was a logic puzzle not a question of looking
up some obscure dialect. Romany perhaps? Urdu? Lilliputian? Double-dutch?
Dadge
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| 5 |
A contrary one from Pete:
Leave well enough alone
Clearly visible in the sky
Good riddance
Vegetables or minerals
The ceiling or the floor
Rough drafts
Which one is less?
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More.
Pink Floyd Albums.
Which one is less?......More 1969
Leave well enough alone......Meddle 1971
Clearly visible in the sky......Obscured
by Clouds 1972
Good riddance.......Wish You Were Here
1975
Vegetables or minerals......Animals 1977
The ceiling or the floor......The Wall
1979
Rough drafts......The Final Cut 1983
Demar
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Pete Mitchell
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| 6 |
Susanna, Michael and the sisters and JFK have a link via Paris to Azerbaijan.
What is it?
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Susanna (Hoffs), Michael (Steele) and the
sisters Vicki & Debbi (Peterson) constitute the music band "The
Bangles" The link is Eternal Flame. The Bangles (Susanna, Michael
and the Peterson sisters) wrote and performed the hit song "Eternal
Flame". There is the Eternal Flame at the Arc de Trimphe in Paris
lit in 1921. The JFK Eternal Flame at the Arlington National Cemetery
was lit in 1963. There is a place called Atsegah at Suraxani, north
of Baku in Azerbaijan. It is known as the fire temple, and thought
to have been a sacred place to the Zoroastrians since the 6th Century
AD for its Eternal Flame that comes from a gas vent.
Venky
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| 7 |
Who painted this?
image deleted
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Diego Velazquez. The painting is titled Las
Meninas (The Maids of Honour). It is an oil on canvas painting,
painted in 1656, size 125" x 108.6" and can be currently seen at
Museo del Prado, Madrid.
Venky
Diego Velázquez. "Las Meninas" ("The Ladies
in Waiting"), 1656, Museo del Prado, Madrid
"In "Las Meninas" ("The Ladies in Waiting")
we have one of the greatest paintings in the world according to
just about anybody's list, a work of subtle restraint and power
in a time of excess. Commissioned by Philip IV in 1656 as a portrait
of his daughter, Infanta (Princess) Margarita it was an immediate
success and marvel of the court, a work of power by an artist at
the height of his skills. Partially because this was well before
the time of photography, the realism of the painting, the sense
of opening a door and looking at a scene suddenly frozen (indicated
by the younger dwarf just placing his foot on the dog, one lady
in waiting just completing a courtsy, the courtier on the stairs
in the background pausing in mid-step, the artist's brush stilled
in its movement towards the palette, and the nun's arm in mid gesture)
has struck observer's time and again. Yet there is far more here
than a virtuoso rendition of a moment in the life of the court."
http://mypage.uniserve.ca/~billa/fineart/velmeneg.htm
Pete Mitchell
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A beautiful child, a stunning painting and outrageous costumes.
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| 8 |
What do Peter Sellers, Anthony Hopkins, and Donald Moffat have in common?
Suggest another actor to make up a foursome.
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Peter Sellers, Anthony Hopkins, and Donald
Moffat are all British-born actors who have played a U.S. President
in a major-release Hollywood film, as follows:
Donald Moffat, born in Plymouth, Devon, England,
UK, played President Lyndon B. Johnson in "The Right Stuff" and
also fictional U.S. President Bennet in "Clear and Present Danger".
Peter Sellers, born in Southsea, Hampshire,
England, UK, played fictional U.S. President Merkin Muffley in "Dr.
Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb".
Anthony Hopkins, born in Margam, West Glamorgan,
Wales, UK, played U.S. President Richard M. Nixon in "Nixon" and
also Former President John Quincy Adams in "Amistad".
A fourth actor to fit the pattern would be
Donald Pleasence, born in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, England, UK,
who played the U.S. President in "Escape from New York".
Another possibility would be Frank Conroy,
born in Derby, Derbyshire, England, UK, who played President William
McKinley in the film "This Is My Affair", but this film is not as
well-known as the others..
Pete Mitchell
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Russ
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| 9 |
In my trusty old dictionary between very
hot and the arms of a church I find an Irish robber, a tribal emblem,
a tester of metal, a highly recommended hitch hiking accessory, a plaything,
an instrument of religious propaganda, a predictable path, a state of
insensibility and an act of copying.
Can you find a couple of drastic first aid treatments?
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Between torrid and transept you find Tory,
totem, touchstone, towel, toy, tract, trajectory, trance and transcription.
Also tourniquet and tracheotomy (I would have pointed out that the
latter emergency first-aid procedure is technically called a cricothyroidotomy,
but it stuck in my throat).
Alan
Between Torrid And Transepts I find
Tory (gaelic tóraidhe)
Totem
Touchstone
Towel
Toy
Tract
Trajectory
Trance
Transcription
I can also find
Tourniquet
Tracheotomy (or Tracheostomy)
Plus Toxin Extraction (put your mouth there
and suck)
Traction
Tranquilisation
Neal
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A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar
hitchhiker can have. Partly, it has great practical value. You can
wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan
Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus
V, inhaling the heady vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars
which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail
a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand
combat; wrap it around you head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the
gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Trall (a mind-bogglingly stupid
animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you -- daft
as brush, but very very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies
as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still
seems to be clean enough.
More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some
reason, if a strag (a non hitchhiker) discovers that the hitchhiker has
his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in posession
of a toothbrush, washcloth, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map,
ball of string, gnat spray, wet-weather gear, space suit, etc, etc.
Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any
of these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker might accidently have
"lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length
and breadth of the Galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible
odds, win througy and still know where his towel is, is clearly a man
to be reckoned with.
Hence, a phrase that has passed into hitchhiking slang, as in, "Hey you
sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There's one frood who really knows where
his towel is."
sass: know, be aware of, meet, have sex with;
hoopy: really together guy;
frood: really amazingly together guy;
Douglas Adams
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| 10 |
William
Geoffrey
Arthur
Frederick
Robert
George
See who's next?
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Rowan (Williams).
The "see" is Canterbury: the list gives the
first names of the last six archbishops:
William Temple
Geoffrey Francis Fisher
Arthur Michael Ramsey
Frederick Donald Coggan
Robert Alexander Kennedy Runcie
George Leonard Carey.
Sgt Dudfoot
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Alan
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