You may use only elementary geometry, such as the fact that the angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees and the basic congruent triangle rules (side-angle-side, etc.). You may not use trigonomery, such as sines and cosines, the law of sines, the law of cosines, etc.
The task is to find the angle x in the diagram, but with your hands tied as explained above. Some people has named the problem: The World’s Hardest Easy Geometry Problem.
- What on earth are you doing?
- Where else?
- ?!
- I am colouring numbers.
- But how is that possible? I thought they were just abstractions, not anything touchable.
- I colour them in my mind.
- And how does it go? I see you use only red and blue.
- I also try to make numbers that differ by 7 or 11 the same colour.
- Isn’t that difficult?
- You tell me! If you can see the colours I am thinking of you shouldn’t have any problems finding that out.
The film is about the extraordinary gifted students who represented the United States in 2006 at the world’s toughest math competition: The International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO). It is the story of six American high school students who competed with 500 others from 90 countries in Ljubljana, Slovenia. It shows the dedication and perseverance of these remarkably talented students, the rigorous preparation they undertake, and the joy they get out of solving challenging math problems. It captures the spirit that infuses the mathematical quest at the highest level.
A building has seven elevators that each can stop in not more than six floors. You can reach any floor from any other floor without changing elevator. How many floors can the building have?
A Canadian psychologist is selling a video that teaches you how to test your dog’s IQ. Here’s how it works: if you spend $12.99 for the video, your dog is smarter than you. - Jay Leno
- Did I tell you about my new neighbour?
- Can’t say that you did.
- Well, he is blind, at least that is what he claims.
- Why do you doubt it?
- You remember the 27 cubes I put together to make a bigger cube?
- How can I forget. I was the one who painted it black on the outside.
- My neighbour accidentally knocked the cube over last night, but when he reassembled the small cubes the big cube was still black on the outside!
- You mean all 54 faces?
- Yes.
- That man can’t be blind!
