Volume 13
, Issue 1

1977

In 1976 for just the second time, the University of New South Wales held a Summer Science School, and for the first time Mathematics was involved.

What should we understand by a real number? Kronecker, a German Mathematician who flourished at the end of the last century, is supposed to have said: "God made the natural numbers: all else is the work of man."

The following "real life" problem was given to me by a student at North Sydney Tech. College (where I teach) only a few weeks ago, and it might be suitable for Parabola.

Take-all is a game for two people.

In the last issue of Parabola, you were introduced to palindromic numbers: positive integers which read the same backwards as forwards (such as 11, 131 and 4334).

Q.333 Two trains $A$ and $B$ are travelling in opposite directions on a line with a single track and wich to pass with the help of a siding (see figure).

Q.321 The following factorisations of numbers are true: $$12 = 3.4; 1122 = 34.33; 111222 = 334.333; 1111222 = 334.3333$$