Kvcet-Exponents

02/08/2015

Puzzle

Imagine there's an island somewhere in the world that's controlled by a mad dictator who keeps one hundred people imprisoned. The island is swarming with guards, and the waters are filled with sharks. There's no way these people can just escape their fate, except they are all free to leave every night!

The rule is that any prisoner can approach the guards at night, and ask the leave, but only if they have green eyes. Since there are no mirrors on the island, and they are unable to communicate amongst themselves, the prisoners do no know their own eye colour. The trick is that all of the one hundred prisoners have greens.

As human rights organisations world wide try to get the prisoners freed, you alone are selected to try and find a way to save all those people. The dictator allows you to to speak to the prisoners just once, but there are rules:
1) You can only make one statement.
2) You cannot tell them any new information.

What do you tell the prisoners to help them escape that awful island?

02/08/2015

This is our first Weekly Puzzle Contest conducted on 23.07.2015 Thursday@KVCET

02/08/2015

Because some people are still convinced that the universe is only six thousand years old, here a refresher on the Big Bang and the universe.

02/08/2015

Nuclear weapons, space travel and TV are just some the things these 10 mathematical equations have made possible.

18/07/2015

1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144 and on to infinity. Each number is the sum of the previous two. This series of numbers is known as the Fibonacci numbers or the Fibonacci sequence. The ratio between the numbers (1.618034) is frequently called the golden ratio or golden number.

18/07/2015

Must watch the video to understand the closeness between the Fibonacci numbers and nature..
Fibonacci numbers are 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, . . . . . (i.e., the current number is the sum of previous two numbers starting with 0 and 1)

Math is logical, functional and just ... awesome. Mathemagician Arthur Benjamin explores hidden properties of that weird and wonderful set of numbers, the Fibonacci series. (And reminds you that mathematics can be inspiring, too!)

18/07/2015

Indian Contribution to Mathematics-1

The first known use of numbers in India was in the time of the Harappans, about 3000 BC. They also developed standard weights (like our ounces and grams), and they were the earliest people to use base 10 for their weights.

By 1800 BC, Indian mathematicians were discussing the idea of infinity, pointing out that "if you remove a part from infinity or add a part to infinity, what remains are still infinity."
By 1300 BC the Indian astronomer Lagadha used geometry to write a book of rules for the apparent movement of the sun and moon. Nobody knows whether Lagadha worked these rules out on his own, or learned about them from the Babylonians.

By about 400 BC, Indian mathematicians were doing more work on the idea of infinity. The Surya Prajinapti defines five kinds of infinity: an infinite line beginning from an endpoint, an infinite line going directions, an infinite plane, an infinite universe, and the infinity of time. This was about the same time as the Buddha.
By 300 BC, when Chandragupta was ruling India, Indian mathematicians began working on the mathematical idea of combinations.
By 100 AD, people in India were writing the numbers as in the picture here. While the numbers 1, 2 and 3 are pretty clear, nobody knows where the other signs came from. It may be that they were taken from letters of an Indian alphabet.
Indian numbers

Indian mathematicians' biggest invention was the use of zero as a placeholder, to make it easier to add and multiply numbers. Our word "zero" comes from the Sanskrit word meaning "nothing."
In 458 AD, Indian mathematicians wrote a book, the Lokavibhaaga, that uses zero in this way.
In 628 AD, Brahmagupta wrote a book explaining how zero worked, with rules like "The sum of zero and zero is zero" and "The sum of a positive and a negative is their difference; or, if they are equal, zero".

14/07/2015

We welcome KVCET-ians to our Math Club KVCET-EXPONENTS