the melbourne university mathematics & statsitics society presents:
TRANSCRIPT
What to do?
• Try not. Do or do not, there is no try
• Don’t think, feel• Throw away
assumptions• Let your imagination
run free
Relax!
DON’T• Panic• Think too hard• Say “This is too hard!”
DO• Be at peace• Clear your mind• Say “This is easy, I
can do this”
Sun Tzu Says…
“Know your enemy, know yourself and your victory will not be endangered in a
hundred engagements”
That’s beautiful Daniel, but what about Zen?
Zen is about formlessness
What about tools? Aren’t they forms?
“The tool is a tool of formless form”
~ Bruce Lee
Its not all about Kung Fu
“A good martial artist does not become tense but ready, not thinking yet not dreamy, ready for whatever may come”
“when there is an opportunity… I do not hit, it hits all by itself”
“It is like a finger pointing a way to the moon. Don’t concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory”
Don’t think too hard
Lets say you have two taps and three bucketsIt takes one tap two minutes to fill one bucket
What is the minimum amount of time it takes to fillall three buckets, and how would you do it?
(alt-tab Dan)
Tricks!
Mathematicians are basically lazy
If you’ve written down pages and pages of working, especially on a UMO problem, then there is probably an easier way.
Perspective on Problems
There is often more than one way to look at a problem.
How many unique integer solutions can be found for a,b,c in say, a + b + c = 100 where a, b, c cannot equal zero?
Representations
A paper tiger only looks scary from the front
How about this – find the minimum value of:
2004 Australian Mathematics Competition, Senior Paper, question 29
Hint: what other ways of representing this are there?
22222222 )4()3()1()1( yxyxyxyx
Now for a challenge!
“the clincher”Express 989 x 1001 x 1007 + 320as a product of primes
2002 UMO, Question 17
Slideshow available at
http://www.ms.unimelb.edu.au/~mums
Questions? Comments? Insults?
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