Hallo, Chip.
Since I've seen your talent in getting the correct answer, I thought of telling you these two problems, which I have no doubt that you will solve very soon after you've seen them.
(sorry for the grammar, I never was good at the in English lessons)
1. Five icebergs have broken from the seaward end of the polar ice sheet. They are now each in a perfect rectangle shape, measuring (in feet) 102x100, 101x100, 103x99, 101x98, 103x98. Given the fact that they erode constantly and uniformly (and on all four sides) at a rate of half a foot each day, after how many days these five icebergs can be arranged to form a perfect square?
2. A very long time ago, in Australia, one man (who amongst other things had a crush on mathematics) wanted to talk to one of his friends in Europe to congratulate him on his birthday. Since on that time there were no telecomunication satellites, he waited A LOT. In the mean time, he started to work on a problem raised by his son: to calculate the sum of the series S=1/10+2/(10*10)+3/(10*10*10)+... with decimals. But very shortly he asserts that he will talk to his friend in Europe before getting to write an "eight" in the neumber he searched. What led him to that conclusion? |
