You are here

The College Mathematics Journal - November 2002

Articles

Alice in Numberland: An Informal Dramatic Presentation
Robin Wilson

Although unlikely to reach Broadway, this play, surveying Lewis Carroll’s life and works, has had several successful productions and deserves to have more. In any event, it makes good reading.

Lewis Carroll’s Amazing Number-Guessing Game
Richard F. McCoart

Speaking of C. L. Dodgson, he once constructed a number-guessing game with instructions such as “Divide by 2, and add 29, or 38, or 47, whichever you like.” It is here analyzed and the mistake that Carroll included is corrected.

An Undetermined Linear System for GPS
Dan Kalman

If we don’t know exactly where we are, triangulation can tell us, and linear algebra can be used to solve the resulting equations.

Runs in Coin Tossing: Randomness Revealed
Geoffrey C. Berresford

If you ask people to make up random sequences of Hs and Ts, they will fail; our brains have so much structure that they cannot produce chaos. Here is how to tell real randomness from the fake, human-created, kind.

Fallacies, Flaws, and Flimflam
Ed Barbeau, editor
 

Evaluating the determinant of a four-by-four matrix using the natural method can at times lead to correct results.

Classroom Capsules

Warren Page, editor

An Overlooked Calculus Question

Eugene Couch

There are calculus texts that graph y = ax and y = logax on the same set of axes incorrectly. When do you think the graphs intersect?

A Numerical Introduction to Partial Fractions
Eric L. McDowell

Writing 71/90 as a sum of fractions with denominators 2, 3, 9, and 5 can aid the understanding of partial fractions.

Euler’s Theorem for Generalized Quadrilaterals
Geoffrey A. Kandall

A theorem on quadrilaterals holds even if they aren’t two-dimensional.

A Generalization of the Mean Value Theorem for Integrals
Jingcheng Tong

A nice result about the sum of two integrals.

Problems and Solutions
Benjamin Klein, Irl Bivens, and L. R. King, editors

Media Highlights
Warren Page, editor
 

Software Review

Scientific Notebook, reviewed by Jonathan Lewin.