Bay Area Circle for Teachers Symmetry

Paul Zeitz (zeitz@usfca.edu) Jan 30, 2010

1 A square is inscribed in a circle that is inscribed in a square. Find the ratio of the areas of
the two squares.
2 Compute 1+2+3+ +100.
3 Your cabin is two miles due north of a stream that runs east-west. Your grandmothers
cabin is located 12 miles west and one mile north of your cabin. Every day, you go from
your cabin to Grandmas, but rst visit the stream (to get fresh water for Grandma). What
is the length of the route with minimum distance?
4 Find the length of the shortest path from the point (3,5) to the point (8,2) that touches the
x-axis and also touches the y-axis.
5 Let (n) denote the number of divisors of the integer n, including 1 and n. For example,
(10) = 4. Prove that (n) is odd if and only iff n is a perfect square.
6 Find (and prove) a nice formula for the product of the divisors of any integer. For example,
if n = 12, the product of its divisors is
1 2 3 4 6 12 = 1728.
7 Prove the Pythagorean Theorem, which says that if the legs of a right triangle have length
a and b, and the hypotenuse has length c, then a
2
+b
2
= c
2
. Hint: Start with a square of
side-length c.
8 Find the area of the indicated parallelogram, if the side of each regular hexagon is 1 unit.
Bay Area Circles for Teachers Symmetry Jan 30, 2010 2
9 How many subsets of the set {1, 2, 3, 4, . . . , 30} have the property that the sum of the ele-
ments of the subset is greater than 232?
10 Chasing Bugs.
(a) Four bugs are situated at each vertex of a unit square. Suddenly, each bug begins to
chase its counterclockwise neighbor. If the bugs travel at 1 unit per minute, how long
will it take for the four bugs to crash into one another?
(b) As the bugs travel, they turn. For example, if one bug starts out facing due north,
but then gradually comes to face due west, it will have turned 90

. It may even be that

the bugs turn more than 360

. How much does each bug turn (in degrees) before they
crash into each other?
11 Consider the following two-player game. Each player takes turns placing a penny on the
surface of a rectangular table. No penny can touch a penny that is already on the table. The
table starts out with no pennies. The last player who makes a legal move wins. Does the
rst player have a winning strategy?
12 A billiard ball (of innitesimal diameter) strikes ray

BC at point C, with angle of incidence
as shown. The billiard ball continues its path, bouncing off line segments AB and BC
according to the rule angle of incidence equals angle of reection. If AB =BC, determine
the number of times the ball will bounce off the two line segments (including the rst
bounce, at C). Your answer will be a function of and .
B C
A

Bay Area Circles for Teachers Symmetry Jan 30, 2010 3
Seven Mathematical Games
For all but the last of these, two players alternate turns. The winner is the last player who
makes a legal move. See if you can nd a winning strategy for one of the players. Try to
prove that your strategy works. And, always, try to generalize!
1 Breaking the Bar. Start with a rectangular chocolate bar which is 6 8 squares in size.
A legal move is breaking a piece of chocolate along a single straight line bounded by the
squares. For example, you can turn the original bar into a 62 piece and a 66 piece, and
this latter piece can be turned into a 16 piece and a 56 piece. What about the general
case (the starting bar is mn)?
2 Takeaway. A set of 16 pennies is placed on a table. Two players take turns removing
pennies. At each turn, a player must remove between 1 and 4 pennies (inclusive).
3 Putdown. Each player takes turns placing a penny on the surface of a rectangular table. No
penny can touch a penny that is already on the table. The table starts out completely bare.
4 Puppies and Kittens. We start with a pile of 7 kittens and 10 puppies. Two players take
turns; a legal move is removing any number of puppies or any number of kittens or an equal
number of both puppies and kittens.
5 Color the Grids. You start with an n m grid of graph paper. Players take turns coloring
red one previously uncolored unit edge of the grid (including the boundary). A move is
legal as long as no closed path has been created.
6 Nim. Start with several piles of beans. A legal move consists of removing one or more
beans from a pile.
(a) Verify that this game is very easy to play if you start with just one pile, for example,
of 17 beans.
(b) Likewise, if the game starts with two piles, the game is quite easy to analyze. Do it!
(c) But what if we start with three or more piles? For example, how do we play the game
if it starts with three piles of 17, 11, and 8 beans, respectively? What about four piles?
More?
Bay Area Circles for Teachers Symmetry Jan 30, 2010 4
7 Cat and Mouse. A very polite cat chases an equally polite mouse. They take turns moving
on the grid depicted below.
1
M
3
C
2
Initially, the cat is at the point labeled C; the mouse is at M. The cat goes rst, and can
move to any neighboring point connected to it by a single edge. Thus the cat can go to
points 1, 2, or 3, but no others, on its rst turn. The cat wins if it can reach the mouse in 15
or fewer moves. Can the cat win?