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UNDERGRADUATE MATH SEMINAR – WITH A PIZZA LUNCH The next seminar is being held at a different time than usual, in a different location than usual (just down the hallway from the usual seminar room), with pizza being served for lunch beforehand. DATE: THURSDAY, October 11 Time & 12:30pm – Pizza Location: 12:45pm – Seminar in Bailey 201 In this week’s seminar, Professor Paul Friedman of the Union College Math Department will be presenting the following talk.
Identification Numbers and Check Digit Schemes
Abstract: Identification numbers are ubiquitous in today’s world. Examples that you are likely to encounter regularly include credit card numbers, International Standard Book Numbers (ISBNs), product bar codes or Universal Product Codes (UPCs), bank routing numbers, Social Security Numbers (SSNs), US Postal Money Order numbers, UPS tracking numbers, etc. Further, these numbers get transmitted from one party to another in many possible ways: hand-to-keyboard, scanner-to-computer, mouth-to-ear. Every time there is a transmission from sender to receiver, there is the possibility that an error is being made. Perhaps a single digit was altered, or
Professor Paul Friedman
Math Club Activities The next meeting of the Math Club is Friday, October 5 during common lunch, 1:00-1:45, in
Bailey 204, the Math Common Room. Agenda items include discussing • Formation of a Problem Solving Club • Volunteer efforts in STEP (The Science and Technology Entry Program) through the
Kenney Center • Planning an informal dinner with some math faculty to help increase the sense of
community between math students and math faculty
The Math Department offers a free tutoring service for students enrolled in its calculus courses. The Calculus Help Center is open five nights a week, Sunday through Thursday, from 7:30pm to 10:00pm in the seminar room of Sorum House. Don’t wait until it is too late to take advantage of this resource!
perhaps two adjacent digits were interchanged. (Remember the campfire game of “Telephone”?) Given this, most identification numbers (but not SSNs!) include an extra digit – a so-called check digit – to help detect if an identification number has been transmitted incorrectly. In this talk, we will discuss various check digit schemes that are used to detect transmission errors – and the varying degree to which these schemes are successful in catching the most common types of errors.
Math Tutoring Available at the Calculus Help Center
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Department of Mathematics October 5, 2012
Problem of the Newsletter: October 5, 2012 Last week’s problem, “The Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever,” was taken from an entry in Wikipedia. A solution can be found there. A printout of the problem, its history, and solution (from Wikipedia) has been posted at the Newsletter sites on bulletin boards around Bailey Hall. This week’s problem: Add ‘em up. Find the sum (by hand, without a computer!)
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1+22
+34
+48
+516
+
Professor Friedman will accept solutions to this problem until noon Thursday, October 11. Email your solution to him ([email protected]) or put it in his mailbox in the Math Department’s office.
Malicious Minds
Hey Y’all, My name is Mark and I’ll be bringing you a new addition to the math newsletter every week! What really makes math fun, in my opinion, is the tremendous collection of riddles that the field has to offer. So, once a week I’ll be including a math riddle with a small description, background, and occasionally artwork. You’ll have one week to sweat over the puzzle before the next newsletter comes out, with the answer revealed. Email me with
questions or riddles at [email protected], and not all riddles have to be strictly math themed. Any brain-numbing puzzle will do! Have fun, and good luck! So this is a riddle that my dad told me when I was quite little and I remember struggling with it for a couple days before I got it. There are four people on an island. The government is controlled by one of the inhabitants, a great and powerful wizard. The way the wizard’s apprentice is chosen is by a competition of wits between the other three islanders. The wizard’s apprentice receives eternal glory, riches, and fame; so naturally, everyone wants to win the competition. The day of the competition the wizard descends from his tower and speaks to the villagers. “I have five wizard hats. Two are white, while three are black. I will place a hat on each of your heads and you must guess the color of your hat. If you guess correctly you will be my apprentice, guess wrong and you will die. You may not communicate in any way, and can not hear each other’s guesses.” The wizard places a black hat atop each person’s head. There is silence, but eventually someone wins, while the other two remain alive. How did the winner know he had a black hat? -Mark Khazanov, Contact me at: [email protected]
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