Resources tagged with: Combinatorics

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Broad Topics > Decision Mathematics and Combinatorics > Combinatorics

Magic W Wrap Up

Age 16 to 18 Challenge Level:

Prove that you cannot form a Magic W with a total of 12 or less or with a with a total of 18 or more.

Transitivity

Age 16 to 18

Suppose A always beats B and B always beats C, then would you expect A to beat C? Not always! What seems obvious is not always true. Results always need to be proved in mathematics.

Cube Net

Age 16 to 18 Challenge Level:

How many tours visit each vertex of a cube once and only once? How many return to the starting point?

Plum Tree

Age 14 to 18 Challenge Level:

Label this plum tree graph to make it totally magic!

Magic Caterpillars

Age 14 to 18 Challenge Level:

Label the joints and legs of these graph theory caterpillars so that the vertex sums are all equal.

W Mates

Age 16 to 18 Challenge Level:

Show there are exactly 12 magic labellings of the Magic W using the numbers 1 to 9. Prove that for every labelling with a magic total T there is a corresponding labelling with a magic total 30-T.

A Fine Thing?

Age 16 to 18 Challenge Level:

Second challenge cipher

Vital?

Age 16 to 18 Challenge Level:

Third challenge cipher

Up a Semitone?

Age 16 to 18 Challenge Level:

Fifth challenge cipher

Jluuis or Even Asutguus?

Age 16 to 18 Challenge Level:

Sixth challenge cipher

The Eternity Puzzle

Age 16 to 18

A big prize was offered for solving The Eternity Puzzle, a jigsaw with no picture and every piece is the same on both sides. The finished result forms a regular dodecagon (12 sided polygon).

Ordered Sums

Age 14 to 16 Challenge Level:

Let a(n) be the number of ways of expressing the integer n as an ordered sum of 1's and 2's. Let b(n) be the number of ways of expressing n as an ordered sum of integers greater than 1. (i) Calculate. . . .

Semicircle

Age 16 to 18 Challenge Level:

Fourth challenge cipher

One Basket or Group Photo

Age 7 to 18 Challenge Level:

Libby Jared helped to set up NRICH and this is one of her favourite problems. It's a problem suitable for a wide age range and best tackled practically.

Counting Binary Ops

Age 14 to 16 Challenge Level:

How many ways can the terms in an ordered list be combined by repeating a single binary operation. Show that for 4 terms there are 5 cases and find the number of cases for 5 terms and 6 terms.

Doodles

Age 14 to 16 Challenge Level:

Draw a 'doodle' - a closed intersecting curve drawn without taking pencil from paper. What can you prove about the intersections?

An Introduction to Computer Programming and Mathematics

Age 16 to 18

This article explains the concepts involved in scientific mathematical computing. It will be very useful and interesting to anyone interested in computer programming or mathematics.

Ip?

Age 16 to 18 Challenge Level:

Seventh challenge cipher

Magic W

Age 14 to 16 Challenge Level:

Find all the ways of placing the numbers 1 to 9 on a W shape, with 3 numbers on each leg, so that each set of 3 numbers has the same total.

Knight Defeated

Age 14 to 16 Challenge Level:

The knight's move on a chess board is 2 steps in one direction and one step in the other direction. Prove that a knight cannot visit every square on the board once and only (a tour) on a 2 by n board. . . .

Russian Cubes

Age 14 to 16 Challenge Level:

I want some cubes painted with three blue faces and three red faces. How many different cubes can be painted like that?

Age 14 to 16 Challenge Level:

A walk is made up of diagonal steps from left to right, starting at the origin and ending on the x-axis. How many paths are there for 4 steps, for 6 steps, for 8 steps?

Age 14 to 18

Some puzzles requiring no knowledge of knot theory, just a careful inspection of the patterns. A glimpse of the classification of knots, prime knots, crossing numbers and knot arithmetic.

Binomial Coefficients

Age 14 to 18

An introduction to the binomial coefficient, and exploration of some of the formulae it satisfies.

Stage 5 Cipher Challenge

Age 16 to 18 Challenge Level:

Can you crack these very difficult challenge ciphers? How might you systematise the cracking of unknown ciphers?

Tangles

Age 11 to 16

A personal investigation of Conway's Rational Tangles. What were the interesting questions that needed to be asked, and where did they lead?

Penta Colour

Age 14 to 16 Challenge Level:

In how many different ways can I colour the five edges of a pentagon red, blue and green so that no two adjacent edges are the same colour?

Postage

Age 14 to 16 Challenge Level:

The country Sixtania prints postage stamps with only three values 6 lucres, 10 lucres and 15 lucres (where the currency is in lucres).Which values cannot be made up with combinations of these postage. . . .

Olympic Magic

Age 14 to 16 Challenge Level:

in how many ways can you place the numbers 1, 2, 3 … 9 in the nine regions of the Olympic Emblem (5 overlapping circles) so that the amount in each ring is the same?

Factorial Fun

Age 16 to 18 Challenge Level:

How many divisors does factorial n (n!) have?

Lost in Space

Age 14 to 16 Challenge Level:

How many ways are there to count 1 - 2 - 3 in the array of triangular numbers? What happens with larger arrays? Can you predict for any size array?

Symmetric Tangles

Age 14 to 16

The tangles created by the twists and turns of the Conway rope trick are surprisingly symmetrical. Here's why!

Snooker

Age 16 to 18 Challenge Level:

A player has probability 0.4 of winning a single game. What is his probability of winning a 'best of 15 games' tournament?

Snooker Frames

Age 16 to 18 Challenge Level:

It is believed that weaker snooker players have a better chance of winning matches over eleven frames (i.e. first to win 6 frames) than they do over fifteen frames. Is this true?

In a Box

Age 14 to 16 Challenge Level:

Chris and Jo put two red and four blue ribbons in a box. They each pick a ribbon from the box without looking. Jo wins if the two ribbons are the same colour. Is the game fair?

Snowman

Age 14 to 16 Challenge Level:

All the words in the Snowman language consist of exactly seven letters formed from the letters {s, no, wm, an). How many words are there in the Snowman language?

N000ughty Thoughts

Age 14 to 16 Challenge Level:

How many noughts are at the end of these giant numbers?

Scratch Cards

Age 14 to 16 Challenge Level:

To win on a scratch card you have to uncover three numbers that add up to more than fifteen. What is the probability of winning a prize?

Deep Roots

Age 14 to 16 Challenge Level:

Find integer solutions to: $\sqrt{a+b\sqrt{x}} + \sqrt{c+d.\sqrt{x}}=1$

Euler's Officers

Age 14 to 16 Challenge Level:

How many different ways can you arrange the officers in a square?

Molecular Sequencer

Age 14 to 18 Challenge Level:

Investigate the molecular masses in this sequence of molecules and deduce which molecule has been analysed in the mass spectrometer.