Another of those arithmetic Le Monde mathematical puzzle: Find an integer A such that A is the sum of the squares of its four smallest dividers (including1) and an integer B such that B is the sum of the third poser of its four smallest factors. Are there such integers for higher powers? This begs […]
A knapsack Le Monde mathematical puzzle: Given n packages weighting each at most 5.8kg for a total weight of 300kg, is it always possible to allocate these packages to 12 separate boxes weighting at most 30kg each? weighting at most 29kg each? This can be checked by brute force using the following R code and […]
A Le Monde mathematical puzzle with little need of R programming but ending up being rather fascinating: Does there exist a function f from N to N such that (i) f is (strictly) increasing, (ii) f(n)≥n, and (iii) f²(n)=f(f(n))=3n? Indeed, the three constraints imply (a) f²(0)=0, hence that that f(0)=0, (b) f(1)=2 as it can be […]
A square Le Monde mathematical puzzle: Given a triplet (a,b,c) of integers, with a<b<c, it satisfies the S property when a+b, a+c, b+c, a+b+c are perfect squares such that a+c, b+c, and a+b+c are consecutive squares. For a given a, is it always possible to find a pair (b,c) such (a,b,c) satisfies S? Can you […]
A quite simple Le Monde mathematical puzzle again with Alice and Bob: In a multiple choice questionnaire with 50 questions, Alice gets a score s such that Bob can guess how many correct (+5 points), incorrect (-1 point) and missing (0 point) Alice got when adding that Alice could not have gotten s-2 or s+2. […]
A quite simple Le Monde mathematical puzzle again with Alice and Bob: In a multiple choice questionnaire with 50 questions, Alice gets a score s such that Bob can guess how many correct (+5 points), incorrect (-1 point) and missing (0 point) Alice got when adding that Alice could not have gotten s-2 or s+2. […]
Another boardgame in Le Monde mathematical puzzle : Given an 8×8 chequerboard, consider placing 2×2 tiles over this chequerboard until (a) the entire surface is covered and (b) removing a single 2×2 tile exposes some of the original chequerboard. What is the maximal number of 2×2 tiles one can set according to this scheme? And for […]
If you remember the previous post, I had two interpretations about Le Monde mathematical puzzle #639: Find all integers with less than 11 digits that are perfect squares and can be written as a(a+6), a being an integer. and: Find all integers with less than 11 digits that are perfect squares and can be written […]
A Le Monde mathematical puzzle about special integers: Find all integers with less than 11 digits that are perfect squares and can be written as a(a+6), a being an integer. Eleven digits being too much for a brute force exploration of the form `for (t in 1:1e11)`…, some preliminary analysis is needed, but I could […]
A question from X validated that took me quite a while to fathom and then the solution suddenly became quite obvious: If a sample taken from an arbitrary distribution on {0,1}⁶ is censored from its (0,0,0,0,0,0) elements, and if the marginal probabilities are know for all six components of the random vector, what is an […]
