# All Questions

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### List of Interesting Math Videos/ Documentaries

This is an offshoot of the question on Fun math outreach/social activities. I have listed a few videos/documentaries I have seen. I would appreciate if people could add on to this list. Story of ...
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### How to put 9 pigs into 4 pens so that there are an odd number of pigs in each pen?

So I'm tutoring at the library and an elementary or pre K student shows me a sheet with one problem on it: Put 9 pigs into 4 pens so that there are an odd number of pigs in each pen. I tried to ...
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### Are there any open mathematical puzzles?

Are there any (mathematical) puzzles that are still unresolved? I only mean questions that are accessible to and understandable by the complete layman and which have not been solved, despite serious ...
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### What do modern-day analysts actually do?

In an abstract algebra class, one learns about groups, rings, and fields, and (perhaps naively) conceives of a modern-day algebraist as someone who studies these sorts of structures. One learns about ...
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### Is 2048 the highest power of 2 with all even digits (base ten)?

I have a friend who turned 32 recently. She has an obsessive compulsive disdain for odd numbers, so I pointed out that being 32 was pretty good since not only is it even, it also has no odd factors. ...
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### Does the open mapping theorem imply the Baire category theorem?

A nice observation by C.E. Blair1, 2, 3 shows that the Baire category theorem for complete metric spaces is equivalent to the axiom of (countable) dependent choice. On the other hand, the three ...
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### Can you provide me historical examples of pure mathematics becoming “useful”?

I'm trying to think/know about something but I don't know if my basis premise is plausible, here we go. Sometimes when I'm talking with people about pure mathematics, they usually dismiss it because ...
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### Is 10 closer to infinity than 1?

This may be considered a philosophy but is the number "10" closer to infinity than the number "1"?
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### How many sides does a circle have?

My son is in 2nd grade. His math teacher gave the class a quiz, and one question was this: If a triangle has 3 sides, and a rectangle has 4 sides, how many sides does a circle have? My first ...
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### What does $2^x$ really mean when $x$ is not an integer?

We all know that $2^5$ means $2\times 2\times 2\times 2\times 2 = 32$, but what does $2^\pi$ mean? How is it possible to calculate that without using a calculator? I am really curious about this, so ...
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### Does a “cubic” matrix exist?

Well, I've heard that a "cubic" matrix would exist and I thought: would it be like a magic cube? And more: does it even have a determinant - and other properties? I'm a young student, so... please ...
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### Best Sets of Lecture Notes and Articles

Let me start by apologizing if there is another thread on math.se that subsumes this. I was updating my answer to the question here during which I made the claim that "I spend a lot of time sifting ...
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### Integral $\int_{-1}^1\frac1x\sqrt{\frac{1+x}{1-x}}\ln\left(\frac{2\,x^2+2\,x+1}{2\,x^2-2\,x+1}\right) \ \mathrm dx$

I need help with this integral: $$I=\int_{-1}^1\frac1x\sqrt{\frac{1+x}{1-x}}\ln\left(\frac{2\,x^2+2\,x+1}{2\,x^2-2\,x+1}\right)\ \mathrm dx.$$ The integrand graph looks like this: $\hspace{1in}$ The ...
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### Hyperbolic critters studying Euclidean geometry

You've spent your whole life in the hyperbolic plane. It's second nature to you that the area of a triangle depends only on its angles, and it seems absurd to suggest that it could ever be otherwise. ...
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### Can someone explain the math behind tessellation?

Tessellation is fascinating to me, and I've always been amazed by the drawings of M.C.Escher, particularly interesting to me, is how he would've gone about calculating tessellating shapes. In my ...
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### Intuition for the definition of the Gamma function?

In these notes by Terence Tao is a proof of Stirling's formula. I really like most of it, but at a crucial step he uses the integral identity $$n! = \int_{0}^{\infty} t^n e^{-t} dt$$ coming from ...
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### What remains in student's mind

I'm a first year graduate student of mathematics and I have an important question. I like studying math and when I attend, a course I try to study in the best way possible, with different textbooks ...
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### Why do people use “it is easy to prove”?

Math is not generally what I am doing, but I have to read some literature and articles in dynamic systems and complexity theory. What I noticed is that authors tend to use (quite frequently) the ...
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### How often does it happen that the oldest person alive dies?

Today, we are brought the sad news that Europe's oldest woman died. A little over a week ago the oldest person in the U.S. unfortunately died. Yesterday, the Netherlands' oldest man died peacefully. ...
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### Help find hard integrals that evaluate to $59$?

My father and I, on birthday cards, give mathematical equations for each others new age. This year, my father will be turning $59$. I want to try and make a definite integral that equals $59$. So ...
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### How do you respond to “I was always bad at math”? [closed]

Here in the U.S., it is my experience that over 75% of adults I meet socially will volunteer that phrase or a variation upon learning that I am a mathematician. I find this frustrating, since almost ...
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### What is the intuitive relationship between SVD and PCA

Singular value decomposition (SVD) and principal component analysis (PCA) are two eigenvalue methods used to reduce a high-dimensional dataset into fewer dimensions while retaining important ...
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### Why can a Venn diagram for 4+ sets not be constructed using circles?

This page gives a few examples of Venn diagrams for 4 sets. Some examples: Thinking about it for a little, it is impossible to partition the plane into the 16 segments required for a complete 4-set ...
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### Probability that a stick randomly broken in five places can form a tetrahedron

Edit (Sept. 2013): This question has now been cross-posted to mathoverflow; see here. Randomly break a stick in five places. Question: What is the probability that the resulting six pieces can ...
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### In (relatively) simple words: What is an inverse limit?

I am a set theorist in my orientation, and while I did take a few courses that brushed upon categorical and algebraic constructions, one has always eluded me. The inverse limit. I tried to ask one of ...
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### How can I find the surface area of a normal chicken egg?

This morning, I had eggs for breakfast, and I was looking at the pieces of broken shells and thought "What is the surface area of this egg?" The problem is that I have no real idea about how to find ...
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### What's 4 times more likely than 80%?

There's an 80% probability of a certain outcome, we get some new information that means that outcome is 4 times more likely to occur. What's the new probability as a percentage and how do you work it ...
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### Good Physical Demonstrations of Abstract Mathematics

I like to use physical demonstrations when teaching mathematics (putting physics in the service of mathematics, for once, instead of the other way around), and it'd be great to get some more ideas to ...
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### Tablet for reading textbooks and writing math by hand?

I am a math student. I'd like to find out if tablets (iPads, Galaxy Note 10.1) are worth the cost. How good are tablets for the purposes of reading textbooks as PDF and writing mathematics with a ...
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### What is the smallest number of $45^\circ-60^\circ-75^\circ$ triangles that a square can be divided into?

What is the smallest number of $45^\circ-60^\circ-75^\circ$ triangles that a square can be divided into? The image below is a flawed example, from http://www.mathpuzzle.com/flawed456075.gif ...
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### $4494410$ and friends

The number $4494410$ has the property that when converted to base $16$ it is $44944A_{16}$, then if the $A$ is expanded to $10$ in the string we get back the original number. ...
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### Is there a characterization of groups with the property $\exists N \unlhd G : \not \exists H \leq G\: s.t. \:H\cong G/N$?

A common mistake for beginning group theory students is the belief that a quotient of a group $G$ is necessarily isomorphic to a subgroup of $G$. Is there a characterization for groups for which this ...
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### Zero to the zero power - Is $0^0=1$?

Could someone provide me with good explanation of why $0^0 = 1$? My train of thought: $x > 0$ $0^x = 0^{x-0} = 0^x/0^0$, so $0^0 = 0^x/0^x = ?$ Possible answers: $0^0 * 0^x = 1 * 0^x$, so ...
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### Why is Euler's Gamma function the “best” extension of the factorial function to the reals?

There are lots (an infinitude) of smooth functions that coincide with f(n)=n! on the integers. Is there a simple reason why Euler's Gamma function $\Gamma (z) = \int_0^\infty t^{z-1} e^t dt$ is ...
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### Are half of all numbers odd?

Plato puts the following words in Socrates' mouth in the Phaedo dialogue: I mean, for instance, the number three, and there are many other examples. Take the case of three; do you not think it may ...
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### How do you find the center of a circle with a pencil and a book?

Given a circle on a paper, a pencil and a book. Can you find the center of the circle with the pencil and book?
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### How can you prove that a function has no closed form integral?

I've come across statements in the past along the lines of "function $f(x)$ has no closed form integral", which I assume means that there is no combination of the operations: addition/subtraction ...
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### How to check if a point is inside a rectangle?

There is a point $(x,y)$, and a rectangle $a(x_1,y_1),b(x_2,y_2),c(x_3,y_3),d(x_4,y_4)$, how can one check if the point inside the rectangle?
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### what is expected from a PhD student?

As a PhD student in applied mathematics or mathematics in general, are you expected to be able to prove every problem, for example, in an elementary real analysis book? I know it sounds silly but I am ...
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### Why is there no “remainder” in multiplication

With division, you can have a remainder (such as $5/2=2$ remainder $1$). Now my six year old son has asked me "Why is there no remainder with multiplication"? The obvious answer is "because it ...
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### Topology: The Board Game

This is a math education question that I've been thinking of when taking and teaching topology. For a few years now I've had an idea for a board game that could help teach students topology. However, ...
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### How do I sell out with abstract algebra?

My plan as an undergraduate was unequivocally to be a pure mathematician, working as an algebraist as a bigshot professor at a bigshot university. I'm graduating this month, and I didn't get into ...
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### Cutting sticks puzzle

This was asked on sci.math ages ago, and never got a satisfactory answer. Given a number of sticks of integral length $\ge n$ whose lengths add to $n(n+1)/2$. Can these always be broken (by ...
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### Connected metric spaces with disjoint open balls

Let $X$ be the $S^1$ or a connected subset thereof, endowed with the standard metric. Then every open set $U\subseteq X$ is a disjoint union of open arcs, hence a disjoint union of open balls. Are ...
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### How to evaluate $\int_{0}^{\frac{\pi}{2}}\frac{1}{(1+x^2)(1+\tan x)}\,\mathrm dx$

$$\int_{0}^{\frac{\pi}{2}}\frac{1}{(1+x^2)(1+\tan x)}\,\mathrm dx$$ My Try: Let $$\tag1 I = \int_{0}^{\frac{\pi}{2}}\frac{1}{(1+x^2)(1+\tan x)}\,\mathrm dx.$$ Put $x=\frac{\pi}{2}-x$. Using ...
I have been fascinated by this problem since I first heard about it in high school. From the Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collatz_problem: Take any natural number $n$. If $n$ is ...