Tag Archives: problem

Fibonacci’s Problem of the Birds

Posted on April 1, 2017 by Brent

I have been enjoying reading Keith Devlin’s new book, Finding Fibonacci. I’ll write more about the book later. For now, I just wanted to share a nice problem I learned about which Leonardo Pisano, aka Fibonacci, included in his book … Continue reading →

Posted in algebra, arithmetic, challenges, people | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

The birthday candle problem: solution

Posted on August 25, 2015 by Brent

Recall the birthday candle problem I wrote about in a previous post: A birthday cake has lit candles. At each step you pick a number uniformly at random and blow out candles. If any candles remain lit, the process repeats … Continue reading →

Posted in combinatorics, probability, solutions | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

The birthday candle problem

Posted on August 7, 2015 by Brent

After a 1.5-month epic journey1, I am finally settling into my new position at Hendrix College. Here’s a fun problem I just heard from my new colleage Mark Goadrich: A birthday cake has lit candles. At each step you pick … Continue reading →

Posted in challenges, combinatorics, probability | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

P vs NP: What’s the problem?

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Brent

As promised (better late than never), I’m going to begin explaining the (in)famous P vs NP question (see the previous post for a bit more context). As a start, here’s a super-concise, 30,000-foot version of the question: Are there problems … Continue reading →

Posted in computation, open problems | Tagged , , , , | 9 Comments