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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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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Top Mathematicians Issue Letter Warning About a Rush to AI
Fields Medalists are concerned that a rush to produce answers could come at the expense of careful explanation and shared understandingAI can solve a problem without understanding the proofs so the question arises, was anything learned that can be passed on?
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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 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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Searching for Any World at All in the Many-Worlds Interpretation
If the many-worlds interpretation (multiverse theory) originated by Hugh Everett is understood realistically as it was intended to be, it can easily be rejectedWhile an interpretation might survive many difficulties, it cannot survive the failure to provide the one thing it promises — and even after seventy years, “many worlds” has yet to produce even one.
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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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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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Monday Micro Softy 81: Termites Are Surprisingly Smart
Provided we agree to count swarm intelligence, which we also use in computer scienceSwarm intelligence enables the colony to converge on the shortest and most efficient path to food without any individual being especially smart.
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What AI Has and Hasn’t Solved Recently in Math
We need to look at the distinction between horizontal and vertical innovationAI displays very impressive horizontal integration (integrating existing concepts) but not vertical integration (entirely new inventions).
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Monday Micro Softy 80: The Digits of Least Significance
The patterns found in numbers can be useful as well as fascinatingLast week’s puzzle is also easier to solve if we observe some of the patterns that number theory reveals.
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Monday Microsofty 79: The Last Digits in Fermat’s Last Theorem
Did Andrew Wiles really prove Fermat’s Last Theorem? Today we offer you a chance to decideAbout last week’s MicroSofty: Think of the probability issue as just a distraction…
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Micro Softy 62: The Ordeal of Sisyphus Fats
A hill, a bowling ball, and the mathematics of persistenceSisyphus Fats, exercises by pushing a giant bowling ball up a 100 foot hill. Every minute, he pushes the ball three feet closer to the top and then the bowling ball slides two feet back.
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Monday Micro Softy 57: My Mother’s Mother-in-Law
Can you figure out this relativity puzzle?Part of the trick to solving Monday Microsofty 56 is to decide whether or not to give it a high five.
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Micro Softy 56: Elon Musk Parody’s Circle of Numbers
The circle of numbers looks pretty simple until you start thinking about it...If you suspected that last week’s talk of baseball was just a distraction from the real puzzle hint, now you can find out.
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Monday Micro Softy 55: “It Happens Every Spring”
Baseball, that is. Here’s a puzzle that takes in baseball's favorite season, summerTo solve last week’s puzzle, you don’t need to know the distance. Check the problem again for the number you do need to know.
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Micro Softy 54: A Plane Problem for Aspiring Engineers
The senator is leaving Washington to avoid the governor and their planes are headed in opposite directionsToday’s Micro Softy tests whether you are clever enough with math to code computers or be an engineer. Here’s the story: Senator Kornn did not like Governor Friar. Both were from Texas. When Kornn learned that Governor Friar was visiting Washington, DC, Kornn said “This town’s not big enough for the both of us.” So Kornn decided to leave DC for that period. Kornn and Friar get on planes at the same time. One was at Reagan International Airport in DC and the other was at the Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) Airport. So each was flying to the other’s airport. Both planes took off at the same time. After a while, Kornn looked out of his first-class window and saw Read More ›