Volume 3, Number 43
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26 October 1998 Vol. 3, No. 43
THE MATH FORUM INTERNET NEWS
Macalester College POW | AMOF - Object Factory | Prime Glossary
MACALESTER COLLEGE PROBLEM OF THE WEEK
http://mathforum.org/wagon/
Stan Wagon, Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science
at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, poses a math
problem to his students each week. Since the problems are
meant to be accessible to first-year college students, very
little background is needed to understand or solve them.
The problems are sent out by electronic mail and are added
to a searchable archive; solutions are posted one week after
e-mail distribution and are accessible for the rest of the
semester. An archive of older problems is also maintained at
Macalester.
Fall 1998 problems include:
- Random Tic-tac-toe
- Passing Pebbles
- Three Circles in the Temple
- Draw a Perpendicular
- Spear the Points
- Isosceles Pairs
- The Doughnut Baker's Problem
Previous archives housed by the Math Forum include more
than 80 problems, from fall 1995 through spring 1998.
Instructions for subscribing to the mailing list are on
the Web at:
http://mathforum.org/wagon/about.html
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AMOF: AMAZING MATHEMATICAL OBJECT FACTORY
http://www.schoolnet.ca/vp/ECOS/
What is a combinatorial object? The main feature of such
objects is that there is only a finite number of any
particular type - a finite number of ways for persons
to order themselves in line at a theatre, or to make change
for a dollar. On the other hand, temperature does not have
a finite number of values (it could be 25.3315411 degrees),
nor does the position of a ball on a pool table, so these
are not combinatorial objects.
AMOF is part encyclopedia and part calculator, a teaching
tool that generates mathematical permutations for some
combinatorial object types:
- subsets
- combinations
- permutations
- 8-queens problem
- pentominoes
- permutations of a multiset
- partitions
- Fibonacci sequences
- magic squares
AMOF also offers a number of links to sites relevant to
K-12 discrete mathematics education, and to the
Combinatorial Object Server (COS), a site for university
students and researchers that can help you find many
additional types of combinatorial objects.
http://sue.csc.uvic.ca/~cos/
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THE PRIME GLOSSARY - Chris Caldwell
http://www.utm.edu/research/primes/glossary/
An Internet guide to the terminology of prime numbers,
including some links to other pages with fuller definitions
and information.
The glossary is written on two levels:
- for schoolteachers and students, using as little jargon
as possible to define the basic words of elementary
prime number theory and provide unusual or curious
terms that could be the subject of research papers;
- for those familiar with the basic terminology, listing
some of the useful but perhaps less well-known words
and ideas.
The Prime Glossary is a part of the Prime Pages site, an
index of information on prime numbers.
http://www.utm.edu/research/primes/
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