Archive for the ‘Puzzle’ Category

Couple of carnivals and a clever clock conundrum

Sunday, August 8th, 2010

Two Math carnivals have recently been published: The 68th Carnival of Mathematics at +plus magazine The 2nd Mathematics and Multimedia Blog Carnival at the Mathematics and Multimedia Blog. Now, here's a challenging adaptation of a problem I recently discovered. I won't reveal the source till later to not give away the problem. There's ...

Mental Floss brain game

Saturday, July 24th, 2010

Mental Floss is one of my very favorite magazines. Here's a simple (if you see it) puzzle from their web-site: The answer is here. SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Mental Floss brain game", url: "http://wildaboutmath.com/2010/07/24/mental-floss-brain-game/" });

Can you name … ?

Saturday, July 17th, 2010

Can You Name All 16 Non-Negative Integers Whose English Names Spell With No Repeating Letters In 10 Minutes? While there are an infinite amount of numbers, there are, surprisingly, only 16 different non-negative integers (in other words, whole numbers greater than -1) whose names in English, when spelled out, have no ...

Pickover’s picks

Sunday, July 4th, 2010

Clifford Pickover recently picked ten of his favorite Math puzzles. I found images from Wikipedia to represent them. How many of the puzzles can you identify from the pictures? (See the bottom of this post for a link to Pickover's article with the answers.) The puzzles are from here. Hat tip ...

Terrific Tic Tac Toe Trick

Friday, June 25th, 2010

Here's an eerie Tic Tac Toe trick to totally impress your friends. You play a game of Tic Tac Toe with a friend. The game ends in a draw. You pull out a piece of paper (or napkin) that you drew in advance that shows exactly what the ending board ...

Pi Day Challenge

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

[ Editor's Note: Alex Cook is involved in a "Pi Day Challenge" that involves solving 28 puzzles. Alex sent me the following email which I'm forwarding for your enjoyment. Yes, Pi Day was Sunday but the festivities continue! ] Hello Fellow Math Enthusiasts! My name is Alex Cook, and I want to ...

An information theory puzzle

Monday, February 8th, 2010

My brother shared this puzzle with me this morning. He heard it on the radio but no solution was offered. Neither of us know what the answer is so I'm looking forward to one of you posting the answer in the comments. Here's the puzzle: Bob and Alice are both millionaires. ...

MMM #25: Monotonous Monday Math Madness

Friday, January 30th, 2009

[ See below for MMM #25 ] Blinkdagger has announced the winner for MMM #24 and I've got a new problem so keep reading. Rich Berlin noticed the relationship to MMM #1 and submitted an interesting solution, based on Pat Ballew's Markov chain process which I wrote about in March. The technique for ...

MMM #23: Counting coin runs

Monday, January 5th, 2009

Yes, I like counting problems. I have a Rubik’s Revolution, courtesy of Techno Source (or $10 Amazon.com gift certificate, if you prefer, or $10 in USD via PayPal to non-US folks) to give to the winner. SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "MMM #23: Counting coin runs", url: "http://wildaboutmath.com/2009/01/05/mmm-23-counting-coin-runs/" });

Monday Math Madness #11

Monday, July 21st, 2008

MMM #11 is a variation on MMM #9. I promise I won't do any more variations on this problem after this one! Consider all of the 6-digit numbers that one can construct using each of the digits between 1 and 6 inclusively exactly one time each. 123456 is such a ...