Microsofty 99: Fan Belt Cutting Technology
The world of geometry features some strange elements, even in everyday thingsThe answer to last week’s puzzle lies in determining how many sides a belt must have.
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Robert J. Marks
Monday Microsofty 98: A Puzzle for Fan Belt Engineers
How would you create a belt that allows both surfaces to share the wear equally?To solve last week’s puzzle, don’t be so sure that you need a degree in probability theory. Study the situation described.
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Monday Microsofty 97: Mad Hatters Flip Their Lids
What are the chances that all of the naval academy graduates would find their own hats in a random toss?There is more than one solution to last week’s Queens Problem because the board can be rotated — but we present one here.
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Monday Microsofty 96: The Queens Problem
Can you place 8 queens on a standard 8×8 chessboard so that no queen can capture another?To solve last week’s dilemma, pay attention to the functions words can have in a sentence.
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What Exactly Was AI’s Breakthrough in Hard Math?
Claude translated an already proven theorem into a detailed computer-related derivation, which is much more difficult than, say, translating it into CantoneseMeanwhile, some are asking if Claude’s Navier–Stokes proof really originated with a researcher and a math prof using the system.
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Monday Microsofty 95: I Told You Her Name But …
You weren't listening. Getting to the core of a problem doesn’t need to involve math. Here’s one that doesn’tTo answer last Monday’s tree planting dilemma, look for shapes other than squares.
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Monday Microsofty 94: A Tree Planting Dilemma
This week's puzzle sounds simple but it involves thinking in terms other than squaresThe answer to last week’s “count the squares” puzzle can be turned into a formula that can be applied to any number of dimensions.
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Monday Microsofty 93: Square Dance With the Mathematicians!
How do we determine how many squares there are in squares of squares? Or cubes of cubes?Hint for the handshake problem in Microsofty 92: Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) provided a formula for this.
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Monday Microsofty 92: When the Nerd Enters a Room…
Shaking hands is expected. Here’s a math question about the custom, to delight the true nerds among usA hint for Microsofty 91: Where might Jimmy the Mooch have found some spare energy?
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Monday Microsofty 91: Locked in the Trunk! What to do?
Can quick thinking save a man from a ruthless gangster’s vengeance?To solve last week’s puzzle, ask yourself, what changes were inevitable over the 25 years that Charlie mowed his lawn?
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The Daily Mail: Clickbait in the AI Arms Race
Contrary to the article’s premise, the AI did not invent any bad behavior. It copied or adapted techniques that are already well known and widely availableThe real concern is that AI can find, combine, and carry out existing malicious techniques much faster and on a much larger scale than the human one.
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Monday Micro Softy 90: Mow Power to You
Why would Charlie's well-maintained lawnmower apparently be losing energy efficiency over the years?To unraveling the multiple negatives in last week’s confusing sentences, we start by remembering that any two cancel each other.
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Monday Micro Softy 89: Double Negatives are a No-No
Actually, they do have their uses — for example, if politicians are trying to correctly state views while making them hard to understandTo solve last week’s puzzle: you are told how many heads there are so start by flipping that number of coins.
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Monday Micro Softy 88: Flipping Gold Coins
Computer programmers must be good at math. The solution to this week's Micro Softy uses math — but you don’t need to know the math to impress your friendsThe answer to Micro Softy 87 depends on understanding which number a given sequence of the code represents.
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With AI, It’s Verify. Then Verify the Verification
Advice for AI NativesAI “immigrants” like me tend to approach artificial intelligence with a healthy measure of skepticism. AI natives, who grew up with it, should learn this too.
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Today’s Computer Chips — Measured in Beard-Seconds
Could we use beard-seconds as a measurement? Actually, we couldMoore’s Law states that the number of transistors on a computer chip doubles about every two years. But Moore’s Law must eventually stop at the Planck length.
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Monday Micro Softy 87: Are You As Good a Detective As You Think?
Here’s a test from the world of codebreakingTo solve last week’s puzzle, look up the definition of “calorie.” Are we using the word to mean the same thing?
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Superintelligence? AI’s History vs. the Myth
Here is the history in a nutshell outlining how we got to where we are today.The breakthroughs have come from human creativity. Computers have served as powerful tools for implementing innovations, but they did not invent them.
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Monday Micro Softy: Dr. Marks’s Incredible Ice Diet
Here’s a breakthrough announcement that will be a blessing to all the people in the world like me who struggle with weight controlTo solve Micro Softie 85, ask yourself, when would a slightly smaller caliber bullet than the enemy uses be a definite advantage?
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Monday Micro Softy 85: Are You Up To Caliber?
There is a serious question here: Why might small differences in caliber matter?Why would a military force decide to use a slightly different caliber of bullets from the one used by the enemy force?
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