### Do Unto Caesar

At the beginning of the night three poker players; Alan, Bernie and Craig had money in the ratios 7 : 6 : 5. At the end of the night the ratio was 6 : 5 : 4. One of them won $1 200. What were the assets of the players at the beginning of the evening? ### Plutarch's Boxes According to Plutarch, the Greeks found all the rectangles with integer sides, whose areas are equal to their perimeters. Can you find them? What rectangular boxes, with integer sides, have their surface areas equal to their volumes? ### 3388 Using some or all of the operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division and using the digits 3, 3, 8 and 8 each once and only once make an expression equal to 24. # Twisting and Turning ##### Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level: This problem introduces a trick that can be done with two skipping ropes. It was invented by the mathematician John Conway. Imagine four people standing at the four corners of a square. Let's call the corners after the compass directions NW, NE, SE and SW. To begin, NE and NW each hold an end of one rope, and SE and SW each hold the end of another rope. There are two operations that the people can perform, twisting and turning. In a twist, the person standing at NE swaps places with the person standing at SE, with NE lifting the rope over SE as they swap. In a turn, everyone moves clockwise one place - NE to SE, SE to SW, SW to NW and NW to NE. At every stage, the 'tangle' in the ropes can be represented by a number. The initial untangled state is represented by 0. Twisting has the effect of adding 1: $$x \mapsto x+1$$ Turning transforms any number into the negative of its reciprocal: $$x \mapsto -\frac1x$$ Take a look at this video to see an example of the ropes being tangled and untangled: If you can't access YouTube, here is a direct link to the video: Twisting and Turning.mp4 If you can't see the video, click below for a description of the process. The video begins with the two ropes untangled, representing the number zero. The operations are performed in the following sequence, resulting in a new fraction at each stage: Operation Fraction Twist$1$Twist$2$Turn$-\frac12$Twist$\frac12$Twist$1\frac12$, or$\frac32$Twist$2\frac12$, or$\frac52$Turn$-\frac25$Twist$\frac35$Twist$1\frac35$, or$\frac85$Twist$2\frac35$, or$\frac{13}5$Turn$-\frac5{13}$With the ropes now tangled, the team begin the process of untangling them again! Operation Fraction Twist$\frac8{13}$Turn$-\frac{13}8$or$-1\frac58$Twist$-\frac58$Twist$\frac38$Turn$-\frac83$or$-2\frac23$Twist$-\frac53$or$-1\frac23$Twist$-\frac23$Twist$\frac13$Turn$-3$Twist$-2$Twist$-1$Twist$0\$

At the end of the video, once again the ropes are untangled. Hurrah!

Now that you understand how the two operations work, try this:

Starting at zero (with both ropes parallel), what would you end with after following this sequence of moves?

Twist, twist, twist, turn, twist, twist, twist, turn, twist, twist, twist, turn

Can you work out a sequence of moves that will take you back to zero?

You may find it easier to call the turning move "Rotate" so that you can abbreviate the operations as T and R.

More Twisting and Turning follows on from this problem.