A big number that shrinks down to about three

I remember this from a book. The puzzle is: The sum of the factors of 360 is 1170. What is the sum of the reciprocals of the factors of 360? At first glance, it might seem impossible to solve, but when you look at it deeper, it's easy. Let's do the classic: 1/1 + 1/2 … Continue reading A big number that shrinks down to about three →

There is a very hard, very hard…

Hey, it's the lousy author, back with another extraordinary enigma puzzle, and I do have to say, Uncle Bungle is really messed up.

Reuleaux and its relation to triangles

Now, it's not pronounced like Rolex, but more like rulers. I don't know why, but it is. What are Reuleaux triangles? Think of two circles overlapping with each other, with the centre of one circle being on the other circle. Now add another circle with one of the overlaps being the new circle's side. Did … Continue reading Reuleaux and its relation to triangles →

Best of 4 years

It's been four years since I first joined WordPress, the blog platform I use, and I wanted to revisit my blog's past. Originally, I used to have a blog for programming, but I a. didn't write on it and b. didn't know what to write on it. I was actually doing it in secret, until … Continue reading Best of 4 years →

Math is very biased

Imagine two people got married to each other and had two children. If one is a girl, what is the probability that the other child is also a girl? Instinctively, you should respond "1/2!" and you're right. Except... you're not. Think of all the possible ways that a girl could be in the family. There's … Continue reading Math is very biased →

Trains purposely crashing into each other to kill a bee

This is a story on how two trains, holding a couple hundred people, collided with each other and the only casualty was the bee that was having fun in the middle...

2 and 3, what could be worse?

Take two numbers that add to 2 and multiply to 3. What is the sum of the reciprocals of these two numbers? The "truly mind-blowing" way to do this is like how I did it, going through the quadratic formula and such. Let a be one of the numbers, therefore the other number is 2-a. … Continue reading 2 and 3, what could be worse? →

Happy birthday, me!

I'll let you guess my age now. This is Enigma 1429 (because my birthday falls on April 29th, so 429.). DIX is a semiprime (prime * prime), CENT is a perfect square, and MILLE is a perfect cube. None of them start with a 0. What are the values of DIX, CENT, and MILLE respectively? … Continue reading Happy birthday, me! →

DLP DLP DLP

DLP, or Discrete Logarithm Problem, has an equation used in cryptography. The equation is: y = gx mod p Where y, g, x and p are all integers, and g and p are large primes, like 35201546659608842026088328007565866231962578784643756647773109869245232364730066609837018108561065242031153677 or 14083359469338511572632447718747493405040362318205860500297736061630222431052998057250747900577940212317413063. Now, with the value of g, x, and p known, computers can easily calculate for y. The … Continue reading DLP DLP DLP →

Collatz by Lothar Collatz

I am not creative. The Collatz Conjecture states that for any positive integer n, the Collatz sequence will eventually reach 1. The Collatz sequence is: Yee So if n is even, divide it by two, and if n is odd, multiply it by three and add one. So, for example, 36, 18, 9, 28, 14, … Continue reading Collatz by Lothar Collatz →