The Toughest Brain Teaser
People seem to like the brain teasers I’ve posted. So here’s another. I first ran across this when I was about 12 years old. I still remember it as one of the toughest brain teasers I ever faced. It is a very simple problem to explain, but the answer may...Pythagorean Triplets and Diophantine Equations
Last week I posed a challenge that came from my high school computer teacher: Can you find an efficient method (or “algorithm”) to generate Pythagorean triplets? As a reminder, a Pythagorean triplet is a set of three integers that satisfy the Pythagorean...Brain Teaser: Finding Pythagorean Triplets
In an earlier post I wrote about a brain teaser from middle school. Here’s one that is a bit more advanced. My high school computer teacher issued us a challenge: “I want you to write an algorithm to identify Pythagorean triplets.” At the time, I...Brain Teaser: Proof That 2 = 1
This is a classic brain teaser I learned in middle school (or “junior high school” where I grew up). Let’s prove that: Here’s the proof: Let’s start by establishing some variables: Okay, so if that’s true, then we know: In algebra,...Find Me Online
