S 21

Vol. 47, No.
5, November 2016
THE
COLLEGE
MATHEMATICS
JOURNAL
Cyanea quercifolia by Thomas Hammer
In this Issue:
The sine of one degree via geometry, algebra, and complex analysis
Knowing whether you can win a football confidence pools is provably hard
Pythagorean theorem: a new long proof and questioning Leonardo da Vincis
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ABOUT THE COVER

Cyanea quercifolia is a 2016 painting by New York City-based artist Thomas Hammer. His
work aims to depict motion and energy with paint; pieces are titled after extinct plants, evoking a
moment in time to which we cannot return. The circular nature of this piece, with its heavy sharp
angles, resonates with this issues lead article, Travis Kowalskis multifaceted exploration of the
the sine of one degree. Hammer is a self-taught artist with a degree in design and environmental
analysis from Cornell University. Visit http://www.thomashammerartist.com to see more of his
work.
Vol. 47, No. 5, November 2016
THE
COLLEGE
MATHEMATICS
JOURNAL
Editor
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The Sine of a Single Degree

Travis Kowalski
Travis Kowalski (travis.kowalski@sdsmt.edu) is a

professor of mathematics at the South Dakota School of
Mines and Technology. His academic interests include
complex analysis, applications of power series, and the
cultural and historical roots of mathematics. He also enjoys
drawing cartoons and visual wordplay, spending time with
his family, and panicking at the ever-increasing size of his
to do list.
Though the radian is the undisputed king of angular measurement in calculus, required
as it is for the familiar trigonometric derivative and integration formulas to hold true,
it is the degree to which most of us are first introduced. The humble degreeone
three-hundred-sixtieth part of a complete rotationis one of the oldest methods used
to measure angles. Its use dates to antiquity and it can be found in ancient Babylonian,
Greek, Indian, and Mayan mathematical traditions [1, 4]. Many theories have been
suggested for its ubiquity, ranging from the astronomical (a solar year has approximately 360 days) [2, p. 37] to the practical (360 has lots of divisors) [8, pp. 1011],
but the fact remains that the degree is, if not a mathematically ideal way to measure
angles, a particularly human way to do so.
In a typical trigonometry class we devote time learning those special angles that
admit exact trigonometric ratios involving roots of integers, such as 30 and 45 . A
question that might interest students of trigonometry is whether this is also true of the
archetypal measure 1 ? That is, is its sine expressible as a ratio of some combination
of radicals and integers? Can we compute the sine of a single degree exactly?
The answer to this question is yes, but the path to computing it meanders through
classic geometry, polynomial algebra, and complex numbers. The purpose of this paper
is to follow this path to value of sin 1 and to see some beautiful mathematics along
the way.
The geometry of sine one degree

Since trigonometry literally means triangle measurement, a reasonable place to start
our investigation is with the geometry of triangles. The familiar right-triangle formulation of the trigonometric functions can be traced back to both ancient Chinese
[13, pp. 5671] and Indian [9, p. 7] traditions. Given a right triangle with an acute
angle and a hypotenuse of length 1, the sine of is the length of the side opposite the angle. The length of the remaining adjacent side is precisely the sine of the
complementary angle, or co-sine, as is therefore related to the sine by the pair of
equations
sin(90 ) = cos =
1 sin2 .
http://dx.doi.org/10.4169/college.math.j.47.5.322
MSC: 01A99
322
THE MATHEMATICAL ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA
The sine of an angle can also be computed via isosceles triangles. Consider an
isosceles triangle with vertex angle 2 and congruent sides of length 1. Since the altitude of an isosceles triangle bisects both the vertex angle and the base, we have
sin =
1
base of this isosceles triangle.
2
(1)
The two most familiar isosceles triangles are the equilateral (606060 degree) triangle
and the right-isosceles (454590)
triangle, from which the familiar sine formulas
sin 30 = 1/2 and sin 45 = 2/2 follow immediately.

Another important triangle, less familiar to us nowadays but was well known to
the Greeks, is the golden triangle: the isosceles triangle whose base angle is twice its
vertex angle [6]. We use this golden triangle to compute the sine of 36 .
36
36
x
1
108
72
x
36
72
72
72
36
Figure 1. The golden triangle subdivided.
Assume the congruent sides are length 1 and denote the length of the base by x. An
angle bisector constructed through one of the base angles divides the golden triangle
into the two smaller isosceles triangles depicted in Figure 1: a short, squat 3636108
triangle with sides of lengths x, x, and 1; and a tall, skinny 367272 triangle with
sides of length x, x, and 1 x. This latter triangle is another golden triangle, so it is
similar to the larger one. Comparing ratios of side lengths gives
1
x
= ,
1x
x
from which we conclude x = ( 5 1)/2. Greeks recognized this as the golden mean
and is the reason the triangle earned its name. Applying (1), we conclude
51
sin 18 =
.
(2)
4
Can we deduce the sine of yet smaller angles? If we can construct two angles > ,
then it is also possible to construct their difference . Moreover, if we know the
VOL. 47, NO. 5, NOVEMBER 2016 THE COLLEGE MATHEMATICS JOURNAL
323
exact values of the trigonometric functions at and , then it is possible to determine

the exact values at , namely
sin( ) = sin cos cos sin ,
cos( ) = cos cos + sin sin .
A clever geometric proof of these formulae can be found in [12, pp. 4647], which we
show in Figure 2; proofs with words can be found in any trigonometry textbook.
cos cos
sin sin
sin
cos
cos sin
sin cos
sin ( )
cos ( )
Figure 2. Verifying the angle-subtraction formulas.
Using this process, how small an angle can we obtain? Given that we know the sine
and cosine at 45 and 30 , we can compute

2
31
sin 15 = sin(45 30 ) =
,
(3)
4

2
3+1
.
cos 15 = cos(45 30 ) =
4
Combining these two values with the trigonometric values at = 18 from (2), we
can work down to 3 :

2
3+1
51 2
31
5+ 5
sin 3 =
.
(4)
16
This is just a stones throw away from sin 1 , but sadly, that is as close as we are
going get using only the Greek geometers tools of straightedge and compass. None
of the Greek geometersor indeed any of the geometers to come aftercould find
a straightedge-and-compass construction that would yield 1 . It would not be until
centuries later that such a construction was shown to be impossible, a consequence
of the powerful algebraic theorems devised by mathematicians in the 18th and 19th
centuries [14]. Perhaps the most relevant result to us is the following: An angle of
integer degree measure can be trisected if and only if it is a multiple of 9 . Since this is
not true of 3 , we cannot construct 1 . Interested readers can find a wonderful survey
of the algebraic results regarding the constructibility of angles in the Polya Award
winning article [7].
324
The algebra of sine one degree

While the tools of algebra are enough to scuttle the constructibility of 1 , they can
(fortuitously) be used to salvage its sine. It is possible to algebraically manipulate
trigonometric identities to solve for sin 1 as the solution of an equation rather than as
the length of a side of a very specific triangle.
For example, if we repeatedly apply the angle-addition formulas for sine and cosine
(which the interested reader is invited to obtain by modifying the labels on Figure 2),
we find
sin 3 = 3 sin 4 sin3 ,
(5)
which algebraically relates the sine of an angle to the sine of thrice the angle. Setting
= 15 in the triple-angle formula (5) gives

3+1
2 3
,
(6)
sin 45 = 3 sin 15 4 sin3 15 =
2
using the exact value of sin 15 from (3). After a moments
pause (or panic?), we see
that (6) is equal to a more familiar value sin 45 = 2/2 by squaring both sides.
Since we know the exact value of sine at 3 , setting = 1 in (5) gives
sin 3 = 3 sin 1 4 sin3 1 ,
showing that x = sin 1 is a solution to the polynomial equation sin 3 = 3x 4x 3 .
Isolating the x 3 term and using the exact expression for sin 3 from (4), this becomes

3
2 ( 3 + 1)( 5 1) 2 ( 3 1) 5 + 5
3
.
(7)
x = x
4
64
Figure 3 shows a plot of the curves y = x 3 and y = (3x sin 3 )/4, which clearly
intersect three times, so the solution closest to the origin must be the exact value of
sin 1 , but how do we find it?
1
0.2
0.5
0.1
0.5
0.5
1 0.2
0.1
0.1
0.5
0.1
0.2
0.2
Figure 3. Solutions to the sin 1 cubic equation.
325
The solution to this equation, or rather, the more general depressed cubic equation
x 3 = Ax + B,
(8)
is one of the great triumphs of algebra. Discovered first by Italian mathematician

Niccolo Tartaglia and communicated to the world by Girolamo Cardano in the mid16th century, the basic idea behind the solution is to assume that the value x is a
difference of two quantities, say x = t u. Using algebraic manipulations, it follows
that
x 3 = (t u)3 = 3tu(t u) + (t 3 u 3 ) = 3tu x + (t 3 u 3 ).
(9)
What makes this formula such a wonder is that Tartaglia and Cardano derived it
entirely geometrically as a statement about the volume of a large cube with a smaller
cube removed from one corner! A wonderful description of its discovery, and the feud
that eventually resulted between the two mathematicians, can be found in [5, pp. 133
154]. Comparing (8) and (9), if we can find values of t and u that solve the pair of
equations
A = 3tu,
B = t 3 u3,
(10)
then x = t u will solve the original depressed cubic (8); so let us solve (10) for t
and u.
Solving both equations simultaneously for u 3 yields
A3
= t 3 B,
27t 3
which can be rewritten as

(t 3 )2 B t 3 +
A
= 0.
27
This is a quadratic in t 3 , so applying the quadratic formula and taking the positive
radical (as Cardano would have) gives

A3
B2
B
3
.
t = +
2
4
27
Taking the cube root of this yields t, which we can then use to solve for u to obtain

2
3
3 B
3
A
A3
B
B
B2
+
,
x =t u =
2
4
27
2
4
27
as a solution of the depressed cubic.
Now we apply this to the problem at hand. If we set A = 3/4 and B = (sin 3 )/4,
then we recover (7). Using the TartagliaCardano technique, it follows that one of the
solutions must be

2
3
3
1
1
sin
3
sin
3
sin
3
sin2 3

+
+
.
(11)
x=
8
64
64
8
64
64
326
Before we declare victory and call this value sin 1 , recall that (7) has three real
solutions, so this x might be one of the other values. Unfortunately for us, numerically
evaluating the expression in (11) on a calculator gives
x 0.009 + 0.015 i
where i denotes the so-called imaginary number, i.e., i = 1. That is, the x given by
(11) is not even a real number, much less one of the solutions to our depressed cubic
equation, and much much less our elusive sin 1 !
Where did we go wrong? With a little algebra, we can rewrite (11) as
x=
sin 3
3
=
sin 3

3
2
+ sin 3 1 sin 3 + sin2 3 1
+i
3
sin 3 + i cos 3
2
cos 3
(12)
and the involvement of the imaginary number becomes jarringly apparent.

The TartagliaCardano method occasionally involves extracting the cube root of
complex (i.e., imaginary) numbers. Although both mathematicians knew this, neither
they nor their algebraic successors knew how to make sense of them. No algebraist of
their time knew how to systematically compute the cube root of an imaginary number.
No algebraist even knew what a cube root of an imaginary number meant!
The complex arithmetic of sine one degree

The problem of the imaginary cube roots would not be resolved until later in the 18th
century, when mathematicians finally looked past the bizarre arithmetic of imaginary
numbers and found very real geometry working behind the scenes. A wonderful history
of the de-mystification of imaginary numbers can be found in [10].
The essential ideaindeed, the typical starting point for a modern discussion of
complex arithmetic such as [3] or [11]is to equate a complex number such as
z = 2 + 3i with a position vector in the plane, here z = 2, 3. In particular, the infamous imaginary number is nothing more than the (second) standard basis vector
0, 1.
Not only does this identification put the complex numbers squarely in the real
universe, but it provides some geometric insight into the arithmetic of complex numbers. For example, addition of complex numbers is the same as the usual addition of
vectors save for a change of notation:
(2 + 3i) + (4 + i) = 6 + 4i
2, 3 + 4, 1 = 6, 4.
Of course, it was not the additive properties of complex numbers that befuddled
mathematicians; it was their multiplicative habit of squaring to negative numbers.
Remarkably, viewing complex numbers as vectors gives a simple geometric description of complex multiplication as well. To see it, imagine for a moment we have a
complex number z, which we represent as a vector. If z has length r and direction
angle (measured from the positive x-axis), it can be written as
z = r cos , r sin = r cos + i r sin
327
using (modern) trigonometry. Consider a second complex number (or plane vector,
whichever you prefer) w = s cos + i s sin and compute the product zw by expanding the terms and recalling that i 2 = 1:
zw = (r cos + i r sin )(r cos + i r sin )
= r s(cos cos sin sin ) + i r s(sin cos + cos sin ).
That may not look like an improvement, but the expressions in parentheses are
precisely the angle addition formulas for sine and cosine! That means
zw = r s cos( + ) + i r s sin( + ),
that is, zw is a vector of length r s that makes a + angle with the positive x-axis.
Said differently, to multiply two plane vectors as complex numbers, we multiply their
lengths and add their direction angles.
This simple geometric description gives a nice explanation of why the product of
two negative real numbers is a positive one: Every negative number makes an angle
of 180 with the positive x-axis, so when they are multiplied together their angles are
added to obtain 360 , yielding a vector pointing in the direction of the positive x-axis.
(Can you now see why it also shows that i 2 = 1?)
Perhaps more germane to our problem, it also explains how complex cube roots
work. If z is a complex number with vector magnitude r and direction angle , then z 3
is a vector with magnitude r 3 and direction angle 3. Hence, to find a complex number
that cubes to 8i, we need only a vector whose length cubes to 8 (i.e., the length of 8i)
and whose angle triples to be coterminal with 90 (i.e., the angle of 8i). Obviously, a
vector of length 2 and angle 30 should work, so that
2 cos 30 + i 2 sin 30 = 3 + i
is a cube root of 8i. The reader is encouraged to cube this by algebraic expansion to
see that it does indeed equal 8i.
However, unlike the case for real numbers, this is not the only cube root. For
example, a vector of length 2 and angle 150 would cube to a vector of length 8 and
angle 450 which is coterminal to 90 . Thus,
2 cos 150 + i 2 sin 150 = 3 + i

is another cube root.
Are there other cube roots as well? If so, they would need an angle that, when
tripled, is coterminal with 90 . If we solve equation 3 = 90 + 360 n, we find
= 30 + 120 n. For n = 0, we recover our first cube root; for n = 1, we recover our
second one. If n = 3, we find = 270 , whence
2 cos 270 + i 2 sin 270 = 2i
is a third cube root (one we probably
could have guessed at on our own). Continuing
on, for n = 3, we again recover 3 + i again, therefore we can conclude that there
are exactly three cube roots to 8i, each of which is rotated exactly 120 from the other
two.
This conclusion holds in general: Every nonzero complex number z has three
distinct cube roots. This collection of three roots is denoted z 1/3 and this is called the
328
algebraic cube root of z. Of the three, the root with the minimumdirection angle (in
absolute value) is called the principal cube root and is denoted 3 z. In the example
above, we would have
(8i)1/3 =
3 + i, 3 + i, 2i
whereas
3
8i = 3 + i.
That complex numbers have multiple cube roots explains precisely the problem we
faced in our algebraic determination of sin 1 . When a modern calculator computes
a complex cube root, it determines only the principal root. This is why the algebraic
solution in (11) failedthe cube roots we demand of the solution are not necessarily
the principal cube roots. If we return to our discussion of the solution to the depressed
cubic equation (7), we realize that instead of (12), a more accurate description of the
TartagliaCardano solution is
x
( sin 3 + i cos 3 )1/3 (sin 3 + i cos 3 )1/3

.
2
(13)
Unfortunately, this no longer defines a single value, but rather nine different values,
three for each cube root. How do we sift among them to find the value sin 1 ?
One approach is to graph the nine complex numbers described in (13). For convenience, define
z = sin 3 + i cos 3
and
w = sin 3 + i cos 3
so that x (z 1/3 w1/3 )/2. By the co-function property, z = cos 87 + i sin 87

also, a unit vector that makes an 87 angle with the negative x-axis. Thus, z makes a
93 angle with the positive x-axis so its three cube roots will be unit vectors that make
angles of 31 , 151 , and 271 . That is,
z 1/3
cos 31 + i sin 31 ,
cos 151 + i sin 151 , .
=
cos 271 + i sin 271
The relationship is shown in Figure 4 left, with z appearing in red/bold. A similar

argument shows
cos 87 + i sin 87
cos 31 + i sin 31
cos 149 + i sin 149

cos29 + isin29
cos 151 + isin151

cos 271 + i sin 271
cos 269 + i sin 269
Figure 4. The cube roots of z and w.

329
2x
2 sin 1
2 sin 1
Figure 5. Rotating the erroneous solution to get sin 1 .
w1/3
cos 29 + i sin 29 ,
cos 149 + i sin 149 , .
=
cos 269 + i sin 269
These vectors appear in Figure 4 right in red/bold, together with the three cube roots
of z for comparison.
On the one hand, the expression z 1/3 w1/3 can represent any of the vectors formed
as a vector difference of one of the three vectors representing z 1/3 with one of the vectors representing w1/3 or, equivalently, any vector connecting a w1/3 vector with a z 1/3
one. Of the nine such arrows, exactly three of them are horizontal, shown in Figure 5
left. These vectors represent three real numbers, two positive and one negative, consistent with the graphical information we found in Figure 3. In fact, the bottom-most real
vector, formed by connecting the two cube roots located exactly 1 on either side of
the negative y-axis, is the base of an isosceles triangle with equal sides length 1, thus
the base length is 2 sin 1 by (1).
On the other hand, the expression 3 z 3 w, which equals twice our original erroneous TartagliaCardano solution x from (11), represents exactly one vector: the difference between the two principal cube roots. As these two roots are both
located in
the firstquadrant, it follows that 2x is the small vector connecting the tip of 3 w to the
tip of 3 z, illustrated in Figure 5 right. Since each cube root of z (or w) is a rotated
copy of the principal cube root, we need only rotate 2x clockwise 120 to make it
horizontal, and hence match 2 sin 1 exactly.
Using the geometry of complex multiplication, this means we need only multiply the incorrect x in (12) by cos(120 ) + i sin(120 ) to obtain the desired
value:

1
3 x
sin 1 = i
2
2
2

1+i 3
3
3
sin 3 + i cos 3 sin 3 + i cos 3 .
=
4
330
Using the explicit formula for sin 3 given in (4) and thePythagorean identity, we can
finally express the exact value of sin 1 . Replacing i by 1, we can then write sin 1
in terms of radicals and integers as

( 5 1) 2 + 3 2 5 + 5 2 3
1 + 3

3

2

8
( 5 1) 2 + 3 2 5 + 5 2 3 64
+

(1 5) 2 + 3 + 2 5 + 5 2 3

3

2

( 5 1) 2 + 3 2 5 + 5 2 3 64.
+
(14)
Epilogue
The expression (14) is an eyeful, but the complex approach can suggest other radical
expressions for sin 1 . It is clear that
(cos 1 + i sin 1 ) (cos 1 i sin 1 ) = 2i sin 1 .
However, using the properties of complex roots, we can also conclude that
n
cos 1 + i sin 1 = cos n + i sin n
for any n with 1 n 90 where we are using the principal nth root. Combining these
two observations, it follows that
1
n
n
cos n + i sin n cos n i sin n
sin 1 =
2i
for any n with 1 n 90. This provides an unusual way to compute sin 1 in terms
of radicals of trigonometric functions at angles we may already know.
For example, n = 3 gives (14) in slightly rearranged form and n = 30 yields

30
30
1
3
+
1
3
,
sin 1 =
2
2
2 1
which is at least prettier to look at. Using n = 45 gives the similarly concise

1 45 1 + 1
1
45 1
.
sin 1 =
2 1
2
2
Perhaps the most exotic description for sin 1 comes from the extreme case n = 90,
for which the cosine term vanishes and the sine term becomes 1:

90
90
1 1
sin 1 =
,
2 1
which, in addition to being delightfully bizarre and strangely beautiful, has the added
bonus of being true.
331
Acknowledgment. The author would like to thank the professors and students of the South
Dakota School of Mines and Technology for both their comments and suggestions to improve
the paper and their patience for listening to him present it over and over again.
Summary. Ostensibly a derivation of an algebraically exact formula for the value of the sine
of 1 degree, we present this calculation as a historical romp looking at the problem through
the tools of geometry, then algebra, and finally complex analysis. Each one of these approaches
gets the reader nearer to the correct value, but also serves to frame a vignette of surprising or
beautiful mathematics.
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12. R. B. Nelsen, Proofs Without Words II: More Exercises in Visual Thinking. Mathematical Association of
America, Washington, DC, 2000.
13. F. Swetz, J. Fauvel, O. Bekken, B. Johansson, V. Katz, Learn From the Masters. Mathematical Association
of America, Washington, DC, 1995.
14. P. Wanzel, Recherches sur les moyens de reconnatre si un probl`eme de Geometrie peut se resoudre avec la
r`egle et le compas, J. Math. Pures Appl. 2 (1837) 366372.
332
Form
Sarah Blake (sarah@sarahblakepoetry.com), Philadelphia, PA
Im well versed in theories. My favorite is that one infinity can be smaller than another
(e.g., there are fewer natural numbers than there are real numbers just between zero
and one).
I have learned patterns of thought. I catch myself picking out all the contradictions and
contrapositives before holding a thing in my hands.
For sixteen weeks I learned how to say that one knot is not the same as another. Similarly, a list of disparities can define me. And the power of discord has me sleepless.
At my best, Ive learned that when I close my mouth Im topologically equivalent to
the Great Pyramid.
When I open it, I resemble a fish.
This poem first appeared in Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics. Sarah Blake has
an undergraduate mathematics degree from The College of New Jersey and was a
National Endowment for the Arts 2013 Literature Fellow. Her Mr. West, an unauthorized lyric biography of Kanye West, was published by Wesleyan University Press in
2015, and an e-chapbook Named After Death is recently available from Banango
Editions with an illustrated companion workbook.
333
When You Wander off on a Tangent, Where

Do You End Up?
Melissa Mark and Michael Schramm
Melissa Mark (markmg@lemoyne.edu) received her

bachelors degree in mathematics with a concentration in
actuarial science and a minor in computer science from
Le Moyne College in 2011. After receiving the degree, she
immediately entered the actuarial field and worked through
the exam process to become an actuary. Mark is now an
associate of the Society of Actuaries and an enrolled
actuary. The main content of this note is from her senior
thesis.
Michael Schramm (schramm@lemoyne.edu) received his
Ph.D. in mathematics from Syracuse University under the
guidance of Daniel Waterman. He has taught at Le Moyne
College since 1987, after twenty years attaining the
designation bene merenti, which, evidently, is Latin for
very old. Schramm is a minimally skillful but determined
woodworker in his spare time, who could not have prepared
this photo without the help of his daughter.
A function is said to be convex if the interior of any line segment drawn between points
on its graph lies above the graph itself. (In calculus, these functions are often referred to
as concave up.) Convex functions have several well-known properties: Any tangent
line to a convex function lies below its graph; if a convex function is differentiable,
then its derivative is increasing; if a convex function is twice differentiable, then its
second derivative is nonnegative, and vice versa [1].
Maple has a feature that allows one to gather up frames of an animation. An
animation of tangent lines sliding along the graph of f (x) = x 2 produces an image
like Figure 1.
The absence of tangent lines above the graph is clear enough, but this illustration
raises another question: Is there a tangent line through every point below the graph?
We investigate this question first.
The region below a convex function

Figure 1 might suggest that the entire region below the graph of a convex function
should be filled with tangent lines. This is not always
the case, however, as we see by
creating a similar image of the graph of f (x) = x 2 + 1 and its tangent lines. (Note
that this f is convex since

x2

2
12
1 2
> 0.)
f (x) = (x + 1)
x +1
MSC: 26A06
334
4
3
y 2
1
1
2
Figure 1. Frames from f (x) = x 2 .
Figures 1 and 2 (and the difference between them) are the primary motivation for
this investigation. One can imagine the (very powerful and narrowly focused) headlights of a car driving along a curved road. The figures show us places that no light
would reach. There appears to be a region in Figure 2 below the graph through which
no tangent line passes. We begin by confirming this impression.
Lemma 1. If b |a|, then there is no tangent line to f that passes through the
point (a, b).
Proof. Observe that the graph of f lies entirely above the graph y = |x|. If (x, y)
is on the graph of f and b |a|, then line through (x, y) and (a, b) has slope
y
1
Figure 2. Frames from f (x) =
x 2 + 1.
335

b y |a| + |x| |a| + |x|
|a| + |x|
>

a x a x = |a x| |a| + |x| = 1.
But 1 < f (x) < 1 for all x, so the line through (x, y) and (a, b) cannot be a tangent
line.
The following lemma helps focus several of our results.
Lemma 2. Suppose f is continuously differentiable. If there is a tangent line to f
passing above the point (a, b) and a tangent line passing below (a, b), then there is a
tangent line passing through (a, b).
Proof. Since f is continuously differentiable, the tangent linethought of as a
function of two variables, T (c, x) = f (c) + f (c)(x c)is continuous in each variable separately. If T (c, a) (as a function of c) is less than b at some point and greater
than b at some other, it must be equal to b somewhere in between by the intermediate
value theorem.
We observe that, as long as (a, b) is not on the graph of f , one of the two conditions
on tangent lines happens automatically. This helps us prove the following theorem.
Theorem 1. Let f be a continuously differentiable convex function. Every point
below the graph of f lies on a tangent line to f if and only if | f (x)| is unbounded.
Proof. Suppose that | f (x)| is unbounded. Note again that any point (a, b) that
is below the graph of f also lies below a tangent line to f , in particular the one at
(a, f (a)). Since the derivative of f is increasing and unbounded, it must either be the
case that limx f (x) = or limx f (x) = . We will assume the former;
the proof for the other case is similar.
Consider a point (a, b) with b < f (a). Let L be a line through (a, b) and consider
a point on the graph (x, f (x)) where x > a. Suppose L intersects the graph just once.
It might be tangent to the graph, in which case there is a tangent line passing through
(a, b), and we are done. If L is not tangent to the graph, then it must lie above the
graph for any point to the right of x (since L intersects the graph just once). If there
is a tangent line whose slope is greater than the slope of L, then that tangent line will
overtake L as x and L will then be below a tangent line, consequently below
the graph, and so must intersect the graph twice. Thus the slope of L must be greater
than the slope of any tangent line. But this cannot be the case because f (x) .
Suppose instead that L intersects the graph twice and consider the rightmost of
the two points of intersection, say (c, f (c)). The slope of the line through (a, b)
and (c, f (c)) is ( f (c) b)/(c a). Since f (x) , there is a point p > c with
f ( p) > ( f (c) b)/(c a). The tangent line to the graph through ( p, f ( p)) passes
below (a, b). A similar argument holds if x < a. This is illustrated in Figure 3.
Now suppose that f (x) is bounded. Then the graph of f approaches asymptotes
as x . No point situated below both asymptotes can be on a tangent line to f .
This can be seen in Figure 2, and the proof is that of Lemma 1.
We make two remarks on the proof. It is a property of convex functions that the
slope of any tangent line is greater than the slope of any secant line whose two points
of intersection with the graph lie to the left of the point of tangency. Consequently, the
point (c, f (c)) would serve the purpose of ( p, f ( p)) in the proof [1]. Also, note that
it is not necessary for f (x) to be unbounded in both directions. The result holds, for
instance, for f (x) = e x , where the derivative is bounded as x and unbounded
as x .
336
( p, f ( p))
(c, f (c))
(a, b)
Figure 3. A case described in the proof of Theorem 1.
The excluded region

2
Figure 4 is the Maple image of the function f (x) = ex sin(x) (which is not convex
and is difficult to see in the picture) and a collection of its tangent lines. Though this
image is more complex than the others, one thing seems clear: There appear to be two
regions in the plane through which no tangent line passes. In this section we examine
the structure of this excluded region (abbreviated XR).
This requires additional definitions. A subset S of the plane is convex if, whenever
P1 and P2 are points in S, the entire line segment connecting them is also contained in
S. (Notice that the region above the graph of a convex function is a convex set, but not
every convex set arises in this way. The interior of a circle, for instance, is convex.)
A subset S of the plane is path connected if, whenever P1 and P2 are points in S,
there is a path in S from P1 to P2 (that is, a continuous function p : [0, 1] S with
4
3
2
1
8
1
2
3
4
Figure 4. Frames from f (x) = ex sin(x).

2
337
p(0) = P1 and p(1) = P2 ). We will say that a set S is a component of a set T with a
certain property if S has the property, S T , and no subset of T larger than S has that
property.
Theorem 2. If f is a continuously differentiable function and R is a path connected
component of XR, then R is convex.
Proof. Suppose that P1 and P2 are points in R and that p is a path connecting them
such as shown in Figure 5. Suppose further that the line segment connecting P1 and
P2 is not entirely contained in R. Then there is a point on the line segment through
which a tangent line passes (the intersection of the two lines in Figure 5). None of the
points on this tangent line are in XR and the tangent line cannot pass through either
P1 or P2 , since they are in XR. Because p is continuous, this tangent line and p must
intersect. But the point of intersection would both be in XR (since it is on p) and not
in XR (since it is on the tangent line).
P1
p(t)
P2
Figure 5. The situation described in the proof of Theorem 2.
We observe another property common to all the excluded regions we have seen,
although it is perhaps less obvious.
Theorem 3. If f is a continuously differentiable function and R consists of a component of XR that is unbounded above, then R is also unbounded both to the right and
to the left.
That is, the collection of x-coordinates of the elements of a component of XR is
unbounded both above and below. The result also holds for a component of XR that is
unbounded below.
Proof. Suppose a component of XR is unbounded above yet bounded on the right.
This means there is a vertical line consisting entirely of points through which tangent
lines pass, and to the right of any point P XR, as shown in Figure 6. By Lemma 2,
these tangent lines must pass below P. As the points on the vertical line go to , the
slopes of these tangent lines must also go to . Thus f (x) would be unbounded on
some interval around the vertical line. This cannot be the case, since f is continuously
differentiable.
We can say more about the the possibilities for XR.
Theorem 4. If f is a continuously differentiable function, then its excluded region
consists of at most two convex sets, one of which opens upward and one downward.
338
Figure 6. The situation described in the proof of Theorem 3.
Proof. We continue with the notation of the previous proof. If P is above the graph
of f and P XR, then every point above P is also in XR (again, by Lemma 2, no
tangent line can pass above P). Likewise, if P XR is below the graph, then every
point below P is also in XR. Thus XR might consist of a component that is unbounded
above or one that is unbounded below, or possibly one of each.
There cannot be a single component of XR that is unbounded both above and below,
else there would be no tangent lines at all. Nor can there be two distinct upwardpointing components of XR, as the union of two such sets would either be convex
(and thus one of the components itself) or not convex (and so not a component of an
XR); likewise two distinct downward-pointing components.
Further questions
We conclude with some possible extensions of these ideas.
What about functions that are not continuously differentiable? Many excluded
regions seem to have boundaries that consist of lines connected by corners. Perhaps
the notion of tangent line could be altered to accommodate such curves.
The upward-pointing and downward-pointing components of XR are clearly not
independent, at least in their positions. Can we describe the relationship between the
two components?
Finally, the inverse question: Given a suitable region, can we construct a function
for which the region is its XR? Such a function is almost certainly not unique, but to
what extent can such functions be characterized?
Summary. We consider the set consisting of the union of all tangent lines to continuously
differentiable functions. In particular, the complement of this set has a predictable structure.
Reference
1. J. van Tiel, Convex Analysis: An Introductory Text. Wiley, New York, 1984.
339
Do the Twist! (on Polygon-Base Boxes)

sarah-marie belcastro and Tamara Veenstra
sarah-marie belcastro (smbelcas@toroidalsnark.net) received her Ph.D. in 1997

from the University of Michigan. She met Tamara when they were hired at the same
institution in the middle of the country, and when they parted ways a few years later
she moved to the east coast. sarah-marie misses eating lunch with Tamara and
co-designing whimsical calculus exams, but enjoys their fruitful discussions about
active learning pedagogy and being a resource on the topic of discrete mathematics.
On the other hand, she despises the unripe green bananas Tamara insists on eating.
sarah-marie has far too many interests to list here, but you can find those and more
at her website http://www.toroidalsnark.net; her favorite color is teal.
Tamara Veenstra (Tamara.Veenstra@redlands.edu) received her Ph.D. in
mathematics in 1997 from Dartmouth College. She first taught at the University of
Northern Iowa but eventually escaped cold country and has been teaching at the
University of Redlands in Southern California since 2001. Tamara misses leaving fruit
stickers at various locations on or near sarah-marie when eating lunch, but is glad to
still advise on number theory topics and discuss active learning pedagogy. On the
other hand, she cannot believe that sarah-marie eats such rotten brown-spotted
bananas. Tamara is interested in historical and mathematical cryptology, gardening
with drought-tolerant plants, and playing Dominion; her favorite color is copper.
There is plenty of interesting mathematics connected to folding polygon-base twist

boxes (shown in Figure 1) that students can discover for themselves with a bit of guidance. This includes Euclidean geometry and calculus, so is appropriate for students
early in their college careers. This article outlines the mathematics involved. Before
we get to that, we will indicate a variety of situations for which this material is suited
and how it might be pedagogically adapted for those situations.
Why use this material? First of all, its enjoyable: Folding the boxes is fun, and the
resulting boxes are attractive and perhaps useful. This type of activity is ideal for math
clubs or other enrichment activities because the mathematical content is not immediately apparent. Similarly, an individual student seeking (or assigned) independent work
can be drawn into experimentation via contemplating the structure of the boxes as they
are folded. The parts of the material that focus on Euclidean geometry are useful for
review in a college geometry class, or as projects for pre-service teacher mathematics
majors. The parts of the material that focus on calculus are useful for review of limits
and/or lHopitals rule in a calculus class, or as projects for calculus students.
MSC: 97G40, 97I40
340
Figure 1. Polygon-base twist boxes.
Pedagogy and support thereof. The amount of guidance needed by students

varies wildly. (Only you know your students and their needs!) However, everyone considering this material (including you, dear reader) will need to start by folding crease
patterns for the boxes. These crease patterns and detailed folding instructions are available in the Supplementary Online Materials (www.maa.org/cmj/supplements) for
this J OURNAL. Some folders will find the twisting step challenging; a video tutorial
for the folding process is provided at https://youtu.be/UTsh0FD0PUI.
On the almost-no-guidance end, an instructor could provide a student with the
folding instructions, the crease patterns, and the questions posed in the Explorations
section. For students and groups of students who need some structure to their explorations, we have created a set of activity sheets that frames the material in a discoverybased way. These are also available in the Supplementary Online Materials. Students
who need a lot of hand-holding will benefit from using the activity sheets under close
supervision from an instructor who has internalized the mathematics in the next section.
Explorations
In the Fold Four Boxes activity, students turn crease patterns such as those shown in
miniature in Figure 2 into boxes such as those shown in Figure 1. This builds the
necessary intuition to answer the following questions, which are also posed in a more
guided way in the subsequent activity sheets.
341
Figure 2. Crease patterns for 3-sided and 4-sided boxes.
Question 1. How do you construct a crease pattern for an n-gonal-based twist box?
There are a number of aspects of the crease pattern students need to analyze here.
They should think about which parts of the crease pattern correspond to the sides of the
box and which to the bottom of the box, how many rectangles they need in the crease
pattern, which rectangles in the crease pattern could be changed in size, and how the
crease pattern forms angles that correspond to interior angles of a regular polygon. As
a follow-up, students could use GeoGebra to make crease patterns for several other
values of n (say n = 710, although n = 8 will be the next easiest to fold).
The first row of rectanglesthe one with the diagonal creasesforms the polygonal base of the box. The other two rows of rectangles form the sides of the box.
Because the formation of the box requires overlapping the two rectangles on the ends,
the crease pattern must have n + 1 rectangles per row. The third-row rectangles are
folded behind the second-row rectangles; therefore the third-row rectangles should be
a bit shorter than the second-row rectangles. The diagonal-crease folds result in
being half of the interior angle of the regular n-gon base, so = (/2)((n 2)/n).
A bonus observation is that because the diagonal creases each bisect the interior angle
of the polygon, the diagonal creases pass through the center of the polygon.
Question 2. While constructing the four boxes, sometimes the corners of the twist
line up with the corners of the box, and sometimes they do not. How does this relate to
n? If the corners of the twist do not line up with the corners of the box, where do they
land?
Students may want to look at the insides of two different boxes where one lines
up nicely and another does not, as in Figure 3, and unfold these boxes to see what
is happening in the crease pattern. They should see that for n even, n-gonal-based
twist boxes have clean bottoms, while for n odd, these boxes have messy bottoms.
In a messy box, it appears that the corners of the twist land halfway between the base
vertices; it is as though a copy of the entire base has rotated by /n.
Examining the folding process on the diagonally creased rectangles reveals that
each emanates inward from an edge of the base. (Figure 5(a) shows this.)
When n is even, the corners of the rectangle then align with the corners of the base
polygon, and when n is odd, the corners of the rectangle do not align. In fact, when n
is even a regular n-gon is invariant under rotation by ; when n is odd, a regular n-gon
has no such invariance.
You might now wonder how the height of the rectangle was determined so that it
would be exactly the diameter of the base polygon in the even-n case. Try using a bit
of plane geometry (similar triangles) and perhaps some trigonometry to figure it out,
and then consult [1] for the answer.
342
Figure 3. A messy-bottomed box and a clean-bottomed box.
Question 3. The rectangles in the crease pattern for which the lengths of the sides
have strict limitations are the rectangles with the diagonal creases. A picture of one
such rectangle is shown in Figure 4 below. How does h relate to s and ? How does h
relate to s and n?
Figure 4. The rectangle with a diagonal crease.
Students should have noted from exploring Question 1 that s corresponds to a sidelength of the regular polygon base and the labeled angle is half of the interior angle
of the base n-gon, or = (n 2)/(2n). This question is not challenging (it mainly
requires simple trigonometry) but answering it is important for the next question.
Question 4. What happens to h in Figure 4 as n increases?
There are several ways to think about this. The easiest way is to set s = 1 and
see what happens as one varies h. Students should quickly see that this limit goes to
infinity, so as n increases, larger and larger sheets of paper would be needed to make
boxes with fixed s. A more origami-based approach is to hold the size of the paper
constant and see what happens to h as n increases. This is roughly equivalent to setting
each boxs perimeter to 1 instead of holding s constant; the limits are the same, and
because the calculations are slightly simpler for box perimeter 1, we take this approach
in the activity sheets. The behavior in the limit is now much more interesting! This is
a good place to make some numerical calculations and come up with a conjecture.
343
Calculating the limit using lHopitals rule is much easier after solving for h in terms
of instead of considering h in terms of n. In this case,
lim h = lim
1
( 2) sin()
2 sin() + ( 2) cos()
= lim
= .
2
2 cos()
2 sin()
Wow! Who would have expected that?

Question 5. Why is there excess paper? How much is there for a given n?
In solving Question 2, students should have been quick to conjecture that the annoying not-fitting interior twist paper happens when n is odd. The current question asks
them to analyze how much extra paper there is for any odd n and to see what happens
as n goes to infinity.
Figure 5 shows the extent to which the twist paper juts out past the base; here a
pentagon stands in for a generic n-gon for n odd.
(a)
(b)
s
d
a
Figure 5. One rectangle of the interior twist for a pentagonal-base twist box.
Using Figure 5, we see that we want to know how much longer d is than the altitude
of the n-gon that forms the base of the box. The altitude of the n-gon is r + a where
r is the radius of the circumscribed circle and a is the altitude of one of the isoceles triangles composing the n-gon. This introduces two new variables, so we need to
describe them in terms of our already existing variables s, , d, h. We can accomplish
this goal in many ways, including by using the Pythagorean theorem, trigonometry, or
plane geometry.
For simplicity here, we will use similar right triangles. The larger triangle is the
basic triangle shown in Figure 4 and outlined in Figure 5(b), and the smaller triangle is one-half of one of the isoceles triangles composing the n-gon. Comparing
the hypotenuse and the side adjacent to the angle , we have d/s = r/(s/2), so
d = 2r . Thus, our desired length x = d (r + a) = r a. We may then observe
that sin() = a/r , so a = r sin() and x = r r sin() = r (1 sin()).
As n increases, the distance between each side of an n-gon and its circumscribed
circle becomes smaller, so we would expect x to decrease as n increases. Specifically,

n2
= 0.
= 1 sin
lim x = lim (1 sin()) = 1 lim sin
n
n
n
2
n
2
Ah! The troublesome interior twist will become less troublesome for larger values
of n. Indeed, when n becomes large enough, one can simply do a bit of squishing of
the box bottom instead of tucking the excess paper away.
344
Conclusion
In our experience, students have been excited to see the interesting (and unexpected)
connection between accessible mathematics and origami. In addition, there are a number of extensions to this material that students could explore to deepen this experience.
For example:
Pre-service or in-service teachers could be assigned to connect the content to the

Common Core and to strategies for teaching geometry and calculus in high school.
Students interested in very challenging folding can attempt a 17-sided box using
instructions in [1].
Students who want to generalize this work to different (but related) box constructions
can look at [3, 4].
Students desiring mathematical investigations related to nonbox folding can find a
wealth of activities in [5].
Happy folding, and happy math!

Summary. Folding polygon-base twist boxes is fun, useful, and an appropriate enrichment
activity for math classes, math clubs, and individual mathematical experimentation alike. This
article is a guide for the use of, and mathematics within, a set of discovery-based activities
about the mathematics of folding polygon-base twist boxes. The mathematics ranges from
plane geometry through trigonometry to calculus and contains at least one surprise.
References
1. s.-m. belcastro, T. Veenstra, Constructing regular n-gonal twist boxes, in Origami4 . Ed. R. J. Lang. A K Peters,
Natick, MA, 2009. 4149.
2. S. Fujimoto, M. Nishiwaki, Invitation to Creative Origami Playing (in Japanese). Asahi Culture Center, Tokyo,
1982.
3. T. Fuse, Boxes in One Piece (in Japanese). Chikuma Shobo, Tokyo, 1992.
4. , Origami Gift Boxes (in Japanese). Chikuma Shobo, Tokyo, 2000.
5. T. C. Hull, Project Origami. A K Peters, Natick, MA, 2006.
Additional material for this article is available at http://www.maa.org/cmj/supplements.
345
Proof Without Words: The Lateral Surface Area of a Conical Frustum

Miyeon Kwon (kwonmi@uwplatt.edu), University of WisconsinPlatteville, Platteville, WI
Lemma. The lateral surface area A of a right circular cone with base radius R and
slant height s is A = Rs.
Proof.
s
A = s2
2R
= Rs
2s
R
2R
2R
Theorem. The lateral surface area A of a frustum of a right circular cone with
base radii r and R and slant height s is A = (r + R)s.
Proof.
s
2r
R
2R
2r
2R
2R
2r
Summary. We present visual proofs for the lateral surface area of a frustum of a right
circular cone by relating the unwrapped surface to a rectangle.
MSC: 97G30
346
Winning a Pool Is Harder Than You Thought

John P. Bonomo
John P. Bonomo (bonomojp@westminster.edu) is a

professor of computer science at Westminster College. He
has a B.S and M.S. in physics from Catholic University and
a Ph.D. in computer science from Purdue University. He
has been a problem contributor for the International
Collegiate Programming Contest multiple times, most
recently in May, 2015, and currently serves as head judge
for the contest. His interests outside of academia focus
primarily on his wife, his three children, bridge, and a
plethora of Japanese puzzles including Slitherlink,
Nurikabe, and Fillimino. He also enjoys the opportunity to
take on small roles in opera productions at Westminster.
As the vibrantly colorful fall season slowly fades to the more austere and grim winter
season, there is fortunately a third season that warms the hearts of manythe college
football bowl season. Every year, numerous college football programs have their seasons extended by one game, as they meet on the gridiron in such storied contests as
the Raycom Media Camellia Bowl and the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl (along with the
Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl, and a host of others). Besides giving teams one final chance
for pigskin glory, these bowl games also afford the opportunity for a different type of
season for those not blessed with the ability to actually play the game: the college bowl
betting season.
For the past several years, I have run a type of pool known as a confidence pool (for
intellectual purposes only, of course). It works as follows: For each game in the pool,
you not only pick a winner but also assign a confidence value to your pick. Each game
must have a unique confidence value in the range 1, . . . , n where n is the total number
of games (in the 201516 season, n = 40). A high value indicates strong confidence
in your pick while a low value indicates weak confidence. The game where you are
sure that the winner is an absolute lock will be assigned the confidence value n, the
next most confident n 1, and so on, until you reach the so-called pick-em games
to which you assign low confidence values like 2 and 1. For each game in which you
correctly pick the winner, you get points equal to the confidence value for that game,
and the player who amasses the most of these points is declared the winner. Ideally,
you could score as many as n(n + 1)/2 points, though typical scores are much lower
given the propensity for players to pick with their heart instead of their head (e.g., I
always pick Purdue no matter what) and the almost 100% chance for upsets (do not
get me started on this one).
CoPoW
An interesting situation arises from this type of pool: Suppose at half-way through
the bowl season that you have won a few and lost a few of your confidence bets. Do
MSC: 03D99
347
you still have a shot at winning the whole thing, or have you been mathematically
eliminated from the winners circle? Note that even if you have a big lead, you are
not automatically assured a chance to winyou may have already won most of your
high-confidence picks, while those behind you may not have. Table 1 shows one such
scenario. You are in a pool with four other losers . . . I mean, players, and are currently winning with 50 points with two games left to play. You have only your 4 and
5 confidence valued games left, while each of the others have their 10 and 11 games.
Note that no matter what the outcome of the two games, you will always come in
second.
Table 1. Confidence pool scenario with five players and two remaining games.
player
current
points
you
Red
Ned
Ted
Ed
50
40
35
35
30
game 1
One State Two State
4
10
10
game 2
Red State Blue State
5
11
11
10
10
11
11
Throughout the rest of this paper we will use the convention that if a confidence
value c is positive, then it represents a confidence value c assigned to the home team
for the game, while if c is negative, them it represents a value c assigned to the
visiting team. For example, if we assume in Table 1 that One State and Red State
are the two home teams, then Neds confidence picks would be 10 and 11, while
Eds would be 10 and 11. Given this convention, we can now state the problem as
follows.
Problem (Confidence pool winning, CoPoW). Given a set of p players with
current scores s1 , s2 , . . . , s p , a set of n remaining games, and a set of confidence picks
ci, j , the confidence value of player i on game j for 1 i p and 1 j n, determine whether it is possible for Player 1 to win the pool.
Note that CoPoW (pronounced ka-POW!) is a more general form of the problem stated
in the introduction. Here the current scores can be any value (including negative) and
there is no constraint on the values of the confidence picks (they could all be the same,
some could be zero, etc.). Later, we will return to the original version where the scores
are nonnegative and the confidence picks are positive and unique.
How hard is it to solve CoPoW? For small numbers of games and/or contestants it
is relatively simple, but what if we were in a large pool with thousands of contestants
betting on hundreds of games (which given recent trends may not be that far fetched)?
We will show that CoPoW falls into a category of problems known as NP-complete
problems. This means that, with very high probability, there is no easy or quick way
to solve this problem. Algorithms can be constructed to solve the problem (you can
probably think of a few given a little time), but when the parameters start getting large
(thousands of contestants, hundreds of games) the time to solve the problem becomes
so large that the algorithm is essentially useless.
348
Complexity classes, P and NP

Before going further, we review some basic concepts of complexity theory. What follows is a short and somewhat simplified synopsis of some of the most beautiful and
abstract concepts in computer science, which also have many practical and important
consequences for everyday problem solving. If you are familiar with the concepts of
the complexity classes P and NP, as well as the theory behind NP-completeness, you
can skip this section and the next.
Complexity classes are a fundamental concept in theoretical computer science.
Some of these classes deal with the time complexity of an algorithm. Here we are
concerned with the relationship between the size of a problem and its solution time,
where the size of a problem involves one or more variables which indicate the size of
the inputs necessary to specify the problem to be solved. These variables could specify the number of values in a sequence (in a sorting problem), the dimensions of a
matrix (for a linear programming problem), or, at a more basic level, the number of
bits necessary to specify the input. For simplicity, we will assume a single variable n
is sufficient to specify the size of the problem.
Solution times are specified using Big-O notation O( f (n)) which indicates that a
problem of size n can be solved in time proportional to f (n). For example, finding the
largest value in an unsorted sequence of n values is O(n), while the standard method
of multiplying two n n matrices is O(n 3 ). The complexity class P is the set of all
problems which can be solved in polynomial time, i.e., problems in O(n c ) for any
constant c. From a more practical viewpoint, problems that are in P are by and large
tractable, meaning that an algorithm exists which will produce a solution relatively
quickly (assuming the constant c is not too large). Intractable problems are ones whose
solution time are exponential or worse. Some examples of these are O(2n ) and O(n!);
as the value of n grows, the solution time for these problems can quickly escalate to
years, millennia, or worse.
A related class to P is the class NP. This contains all problems whose solution can
be verified in polynomial time. Clearly, any problem in P is also in NP, but one of the
great open questions in theoretical computer science is whether membership in NP
automatically implies membership in P. In other words, does P = NP? Many problems
have been shown to be in NP, but no polynomial solution has been found for them, as
well as no proof that a polynomial solution is impossible. If you were a betting person
(if you are reading this article, then my guess is that you are), then the smart money
is on P = NP. And speaking of money, if you ever resolve this problem, be sure to
contact the Clay Mathematics Institute and collect $1,000,000.
NP-complete problems and polynomial reductions

Within NP is a subset called NP-complete problems, first described by Cook in 1971
[1]. They represent the hardest problems in NP in the following sense: If any one of
these problems can be shown to be in P, then all problems in NP are in P, and thus
P = NP and the world has a new millionaire. Showing that a problem is NP-complete
is tantamount to saying that there is no known quick (i.e., polynomial) algorithm to
solve it. One of the best known NP-complete problems is the Traveling Salesman
Problem (TSP): Given a weighted graph, find the minimum cost cycle which visits
all of the vertices exactly once. Much work has gone into finding a quick solution for
this problem, but to date no known polynomial solution exists.
The standard method to show that a problem R is NP-complete, first used by Karp
in 1972 [3], consists of two steps. We first show that R is in NP, which is usually
349
straightforward. The second step uses a process called polynomial-time reduction. We

start with a known NP-complete problem S and show how we can solve any instance
of S by converting it to an instance of problem R. This conversion (or reduction) must
take polynomial time itself. Once we show that the instance of S has a solution if
and only if the corresponding instance of R has a solution, then we are done: R is
NP-complete. See [2] for a more detailed explanation of this and other facets of NPcompleteness; for example, how was the very first NP-complete problem determined
if there was nothing to reduce it to?
CoPoW is NP-complete
To show that CoPoW is NP-complete, we follow the steps outlined above: Show that
CoPoW is in NP and then find some existing NP-complete problem which can be
reduced to CoPoW in polynomial time. One of the most commonly used NP-complete
problems for this task is the 3cnf satisfiability problem (3-SAT for short): Given a
Boolean expression in 3 conjunctive normal form (3cnf), determine if there is a truth
assignment to the Boolean variables which makes the entire formula true. An expression is in 3cnf if it consists of a conjunction of clauses where each clause is a disjunction of three literals (where a literal is either a Boolean variable or its negation). For
example, the formula
(x1 x2 x3 ) (x1 x1 x2 ) (x2 x3 x4 )
is in 3cnf and is satisfiable with the assignment x1 = x2 = x3 = x4 = TRUE (among
many other satisfiable assignments). The formula
(x1 x1 x1 ) (x1 x1 x1 )
is also in 3cnf but is not satisfiable. 3-SAT was one of the earliest problems shown to
be NP-complete [3] and we now use it to show that CoPoW is NP-complete.
Theorem. CoPoW is NP-complete.
Proof. Clearly CoPoW is in NP: Given a solution to CoPoW, we can verify it in
polynomial time by simply taking the n outcomes, determining every players score,
and seeing if Player 1 is the winner.
The work is reducing 3-SAT to CoPoW by a polynomial reduction. Assume the 3SAT expression e we wish to satisfy consists of m clauses. We construct an instance
of CoPoW which consists of 3m games, one for each literal in e. We call each group
of games corresponding to three literals in one clause a triad. Next we construct three
types of playersPlayer 1, clause players, and consistency playersdefined below by
their current score and their set of 3m confidence picks.
(1) Player 1 is the subject of our problem: Is she mathematically eliminated from
the pool? We define her by
current score 3m + 5 and
for each game corresponding to a nonnegated variable we assign a confidence
value 1 (i.e., betting on the home team) and for each negated variable we assign a
value 1 (a bet on the away team).
We note two things concerning Player 1: Her maximum possible score is 6m + 5.
Also, if she gets at least one game correct in each triad, then she scores at least 4m + 5
points. We will call each of these correct games an anchor game for the triad.
350
It may seem that when this latter case is true, we can convert anchor games to a satisfying assignment of truth values for e as follows: If the anchor game is a home game,
then we assign TRUE to the corresponding variable; otherwise we assign FALSE to
the variable. In each case, the assignment would make the corresponding clause TRUE
and e would be satisfied. However, there is one problem: It is possible that one anchor
game may assign TRUE to some variable xi while another may assign FALSE to the
same variable. Our object then is to construct the remaining players so that Player 1
wins if and only if
she has at least one anchor game in each triad, and
the assignment of truth values to the variables is consistent.
We enforce these two conditions with the remaining two types of players.
(2) Clause players ensure that Player 1 wins if and only if there is at least one anchor
game in each triad. There will be a total of m clause players, one for each clause in e.
We construct clause player i by
current score 0 and
for the games in the ith triad we assign a confidence value (2m + 2) if the
corresponding variable in e is nonnegated and assign a confidence value 2m + 2 if the
corresponding variable is negated. (Note that for this triad, clause player i is betting
on the opposite teams from Player 1.) All other games have confidence value 0.
If there is no anchor game in the ith triad, then clause player i will amass 6m + 6
points and will beat Player 1 no matter the outcome of the other games. However, if
there is at least one anchor game in each triad, Player 1 scores at least 4m + 5 while
the most any clause player can score is 4m + 4, so in this case Player 1 will beat all
the clause players.
(3) Consistency players come in pairs, for each pair of occurances of the same
variable in e, whether negated or not. They have
current score 0 and
for the two games corresponding to the pair of variables, set the confidence values for the first consistency player to 3m + 3 and (3m + 3) and confidence values
(3m + 3) and 3m + 3 for the second consistency player. (Note that these values are
independent to whether the variable is or is not negated.) All other games have confidence value 0.
Assume that Player 1 has two anchor games associated with the same variable, one
a home win and the other an away win. This would result in assigning both TRUE and
FALSE to the same variable. In this case, one of the two consistency players associated
with this variable pair will amass 6m + 6 points and will beat Player 1, no matter the
outcome of the other games. However, if the same two anchor games are both home
or both away wins, then each consistency player will only score 3m + 3 points and
Player 1 will beat each of them as long as there is one anchor in each triad.
Table 2 shows an example of this reduction applied to the logical expression
e = (x1 x2 x3 ) (x1 x1 x2 )
which has m = 2 clauses with p = 4 pairs of identical variables (from the three x1
or x1 terms taken pairwise and then two x2 or x2 terms). In this case there are a
total of six games and 11 players. In general, the number of games is 3m and the
number of players is 1 + m + 2 p where p is the number of pairs of identical variables
in the expression. The maximum value for p occurs when every literal in e is for the
same variable; in this case p = 3m(3m 1)/2. So the maximum number of players is
9m 2 2m + 1 and the maximum number of confidence picks is 27m 3 6m 2 + 3m,
i.e., O(m 3 ). This shows that the reduction of 3-SAT to CoPoW is polynomial.
351
Table 2. Example of 3-SAT to CoPoW conversion. Positive values represent confidence

values for home teams and negative values represent confidence picks for away teams.
3-SAT expression: e = (x1 x2 x3 ) (x1 x1 x2 )

Resulting CoPoW conversion:
player
current
points
Player 1
games
g1,3 g2,1
g2,2
g2,3
g1,1
g1,2
11
clause player 1
clause player 2
0
0
6
0
6
0
6
0
0
6
0
6
0
6
consistency player 1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
9
9
9
9
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
9
9
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
9
9
0
0
9
9
0
0
0
0
9
9
9
9
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
9
9
We now show that the 3-SAT clause e is satisfiable if and only if there is a possible
winning outcome for Player 1. We treat each implication in turn.
If e is satisfiable, then Player 1 can win: Let A be the assignment of truth values
that make e true. For any variable set to TRUE in A we select the home team to win
for any game associated with that variable; otherwise, we select the away team. In
each clause in e either one nonnegated variable must be set to TRUE or one negated
variable must be set to FALSE; in either case Player 1 will win the corresponding game
in the triad associated with that clause and will score at least 4m + 5 points, while the
most any clause player will be able to score is 4m + 4. Furthermore, since all games
associated with any variable are either all home wins or all away wins, the most any
consistency player can score is 3m + 3, so the selection of wins based on A gives a
winning scenario for Player 1.
If Player 1 can win, then e is satisfiable: Since Player 1 has a winning strategy, there
must be an anchor game in each triad, else one of the clause players would win. For
every anchor game which is a home win, assign TRUE to the corresponding variable;
for every anchor game which is an away win, assign FALSE. Furthermore, since Player
1 has beaten all of the consistency players, we know that no variable has been assigned
both TRUE and FALSE in this process. Since home game selections correspond to
nonnegated variables, setting those variables to TRUE makes the clause containing
that variable TRUE. Similarly, away game selections correspond to negated variables,
so setting them to FALSE makes the clauses containing those variables TRUE as well.
Since every triad has an anchor game, every clause in e is set to TRUE and we have a
satisfying assignment of truth values to a set of variables in e. Any variable not already
set can be randomly set TRUE or FALSE without affecting the satisfiability of e.
Therefore, since CoPoW is in NP and 3-SAT can be polynomially reduced to it,
CoPoW is NP-complete.
352
Back to the original problem

Even though CoPoW is NP-complete, it does not automatically imply that our original
problemwhere confidence values have to be unique and in the range 1 to nis also
NP-complete. Many times NP-complete problems become tractable when constraints
are placed on some of the problem parameters. For example, TSP is easily solvable if
we constrain all the edges values to be one. Might CoPoW no longer be NP-complete
if we constrain the confidence values as specified in the original problem?
It turns out the answer is nothere is still a reduction from 3-SAT even in this
constrained case. We briefly outline it below and leave the details for the reader. This
construction will not be as neat as the one above. There our selection of confidence
values and current scores had Player 1 winning or losing by just 1 point in most circumstances; such a construction is much harder for the constrained version of CoPoW
(though fun to work out). Instead, we will use the following polynomial-time reduction
from 3-SAT.
Player 1 construction:
Current score 50m 3 .
For the ith game we assign a confidence value i if the corresponding variable is
nonnegated, and i otherwise.
Clause players construction:
Current score 0.
Confidence values for each game are set the same as for Player 1 except for the
three games in the ith triad, 3i 2, 3i 1, and 3i. For these games we use the values
shown in Table 3.
Table 3. Clause player confidence values for constrained CoPoW reduction.
game
corresponding variable is
nonnegated
negated
3i 2
3i 1
3i
(20m 3 1)
20m 3
(20m 3 + 1)
20m 3 1
20m 3
20m 3 + 1
For each pair of identical variables, construct two consistency players:

Current score 0.
Confidence values for each game are set the same as for Player 1 except for the
two games corresponding to the pair of variables. For these games we use the values
shown in Table 4.
Table 4. Consistency player confidence values for constrained CoPoW reduction.
game associated with
first instance of pair

second instance of pair
(30m 1)
30m 3 + 1
30m 3 + 1
(30m 3 1)
An example of a reduction using the scheme above is shown in Table 5. Note that
the confidence values will be unique and can always be considered to be taken from
an original set of 30m 3 + 1 games, most of which have been played already (and
353
Table 5. Example of 3-SAT to constrained CoPoW conversion.
3-SAT expression: e = (x1 x2 x3 ) (x1 x1 x2 )

Resulting CoPoW conversion:
player
current
points
Player 1
400
clause player 1
clause player 2
games
g1,1
g1,2
g1,3
g2,1
g2,2
g2,3
0
0
159
1
160
2
161
3
4
159
5
160
6
161
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
241
239
241
239
1
1
1
1
2
2
2
2
2
2
241
239
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
239
241
4
4
241
239
4
4
5
5
239
241
239
241
5
5
6
6
6
6
6
6
239
241
for which all of the clause and consistency players have bet incorrectly, since they
each have a current score of 0). The choices of 50m 3 , 20m 3 1, 30m 3 1, etc., are
relatively arbitrary: Any large number relative to the sum of the remaining confidence
values for Player 1 (which equals 3m(3m + 1)/2) will suffice. Using these values,
the results of the games involving confidence values in the range 1, . . . , 3m have a
very small impact on the final score for each player relative to the games involving
the much larger confidence values. Because of this, the clause and consistency players
will play the same role in the constrained version of CoPoW as they did in the previous
example. Namely, if there is no anchor game in some triad, there will be a clause
player scoring at least 60m 3 points, which will beat Player 1s top possible score of
50m 3 + 3m(3m + 1)/2. Likewise, a consistency player will score at least 60m 3 points
if there is a home win and an away win for games associated with the same variable
in e. Using these facts, the proof that 3-SAT has a satisfiable assignment if and only if
Player 1 has a winning scenario is almost identical to the proof for the unconstrained
version of CoPoW.
This paper highlights one of the most interesting aspects of mathematics; how it
has something to say about normal, everyday occurrences. I had run the confidence
pool for many years and this question had always been in the back of my mind, but
it was not until I had time to truly ponder it that I realized the actual complexity of
the problem. Will it have major repercussions on my approach to the next confidence
pool? Probably notI will keep on losing regardless. But it is always satisfying to
come across a little problem and solve it. That is a nice win.
Summary. This article address the question of whether or not it is possible to know if you are
mathematically eliminated from a type of betting pool known as a confidence pool. We show
that this problem falls in the category of NP-complete problems, meaning that there is almost
surely no quick method to determine the answer.
354
References
1. S. A. Cook, The complexity of theorem-proving procedures, in Proceedings of the Third Annual ACM Symposium on the Theory of Computing. Eds. M. A. Harrison, R. B. Banerji, J. D. Ullman. Association for Computing
Machinery, New York, 1971. 151158.
2. M. Garey, D. S. Johnson, Computers and Intractability: A Guide to the Theory of NP-Completeness. Freeman,
San Francisco, 1979.
3. R. M. Karp, Reducibility among combinatorial problems, in Complexity of Computer Computations. Eds.
R. E. Miller, J. W. Thatcher. Plenum, New York, 1972. 85103.
Proof Without Words: A Right Triangle Identity

Roger B. Nelsen (nelsen@lclark.edu), Lewis & Clark College, Portland, OR
Theorem. Let s, r, R denote that semiperimeter, inradius, and circumradius,
respectively, of a triangle. For a right triangle, s = r + 2R.
Proof.
r
r
y
x
2R
Moreover, since s > r + 2R for acute triangles and s < r + 2R for obtuse
triangles, s = r + 2R characterizes right triangles [1].
Summary. We use a figure to relate the semiperimeter, inradius, and circumradius of a
right triangle.
Reference
1. W. J. Blundon, On certain polynomials associated with the triangle, Math. Mag. 36 (1963) 247248,
http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2687913.
MSC: 51N05
355
A New and Rather Long Proof of the

Pythagorean Theorem by Way of a
Proposition on Isosceles Triangles
Kaushik Basu
Kaushik Basu (kb40@cornell.edu) is professor of

economics and C. Marks Professor at Cornell University
and was, until recently, chief economist and senior vice
president of the World Bank. His interests, beyond
economics, are in philosophy and art.
There is an abundance of proofs available for Pythagorass theorem on right-angled

triangles, from Pythagorass own alleged proof in the 6th century B.C., through
Euclids proof [4], the proof by Thabit ibn Qurra of Baghdad in the 9th century, and
the Indian 12th century mathematician Bhaskaras proof, to the one by the 20th President of the United States, James Garfield [6]. (See a related article on p. 361 on a
proof attributed to Leonardo da Vinci.)
The aim of this paper is to present a new and rather long proof of this theorem.
In doing so, I have to face the inevitable question, Why? This is especially so
because an important principle of mathematics is brevity. Many times an original, long proof is cast aside with the subsequent discovery of shorter proofs. One
example of this within the realm of my own interests is Arrows celebrated impossibility theorem on voting systems [1]. The original proof has been superseded almost
purely on grounds of its length by much shorter proofs, e.g., Geanakoplos [5] and
Sen [7].
How then can one justify presenting a new and longer proof of the Pythagorean
theorem? To answer this, I invoke another Greek, Constantine Cavafy and his poem
Ithaca, describing the long journey to Odysseuss home island after the Trojan War.
When you reach the island, the poet warns, you are likely to be disappointed, for it
will have little new to offer. But he claims that Ithacas charm is the journey itself [3].
Ithaca gave to you the beautiful journey;
without her you wouldnt have set upon the road.
But she has nothing left to give you.
In this article, I take the reader to the familiar, final theorem via two novel propositions or lemmas, one pertaining to isosceles triangles and the other to right-angled
triangles. I hope that these lemmas, and especially the one on isosceles triangles, will
be of interest in themselves. As Cavafy says in the same poem,
Hope that the road is a long one.
Many may the summer mornings be
whenwith what pleasure, with what joy
you first put in to harbors new to your eyes.
MSC: 51M04
356
To set out the terminology, the Pythagorean theorem says that for any right-angled
triangle, in which the hypotenuse has a length of r and the other two sides lengths of
a and d, it must be that r 2 = a 2 + d 2 . We prove the theorem using two lemmas, stated
and proved in the next two sections.
The isosceles lemma

Consider an isosceles triangle in which no angle is greater than 90 , such as ABC in
Figure 1. Let the two equal sides be of length c and let the length of CB be r . Now
from the vertex C drop a perpendicular to the side AB and label the intersection point
D; let the length of DB be d.
Next draw a rectangle on the side AB, which has height d (and the other side has
length c, of course). Draw an identical rectangle on the side AC. These two rectangles
are labeled R1 and R2 in Figure 1 right.
A
A
R1
D
B
d
E
R2
d
B
Figure 1.
Lemma (Isosceles). In the situation described, the sum of the areas of rectangles
R1 and R2 is equal to the area of the square on the third side, BC. In other words,
r 2 = 2dc.
Proof. Continuing with the triangle shown in Figure 1 left, drop a perpendicular
from A to the side BC and let E be the point of intersection.
Clearly E bisects BC, hence BE and EC both have length r/2. It is easy to see that
triangles AEB and CDB are similar. That is, their only (possible) difference is the size.
Hence, in terms of lengths, DB is to BC what BE is to AB. That is,
r/2
d
=
r
c
from which we conclude r 2 = 2dc.
Corollary. In the special case in which the isosceles triangle happens to be rightangled, the isosceles lemma implies the Pythagorean theorem.
357
Proof. Consider the angle at vertex A, in Figure 1, to be 90 . For such an isosceles

triangle, it is clear that the point D will coincide with A. Hence, d = c in this case.
Substituting this into the result of the isosceles lemma gives r 2 = 2c2 , matching what
the Pythagorean theorem would assert in this case.
This is of course not enough for what we are setting out to do in this paper, since
the corollary applies to only isosceles right-angled triangles.
Before proceeding further, for the reader wary of the many equal tos in geometry,
I record Nigel Molesworths observation from Down with Skool! [8]:
To do geom you hav to make a lot of things equal to each other when you can
see perfectly well that they dont. This agane is due to Pythagoras and it formed
much of his conversation at brekfast.
(The scene ends with the mathematicians wife throwing porridge at him).
The right-angled lemma

Consider a right-angled triangle, such as ABF in Figure 2. Let a be the length of BF
and b the length of AB. From the vertex B drop a line to the side AF to that the point
of intersection G so that the length of AG is b. In other words, ABG is isosceles. Let c
be the length of AF and f the length of FG.
Next draw a rectangle on the side AF and also one on the side AB which each have
height f . These are labeled as rectangle R3 and R4 in Figure 2.
f
R4
F f G
c
B f
R4
Figure 2.
Lemma (Right-angled). In the situation described, the sum of the areas of the
rectangles R3 and R4 is equal to the square on the side FB. That is, a 2 = b f + c f .
Proof. As shown in Figure 3, draw a line parallel to BG through the vertex F and
let H be the point of intersection with the line determined by A and B.
Since FH is parallel to GB and ABG is isosceles (by construction), AHF must be
isosceles as well. Hence, the length of HB is f . Now draw HG and let J be the point
where it intersects FB. Let n be the length of FJ and m the length of JB. Clearly, it
follows n is also the length of HJ and m is also the length of JG. Therefore, n + m = a.
358
F
n
f
m
G
c
Figure 3.
It is easy to see GFJ and BFA are similar triangles, hence n/m = c/b. Combining
this with n + m = a gives n = a m = a bn/c which is equivalent to
n=
ac
.
b+c
Again, since GFJ and BFA are similar, f /n = a/c.

From the two previous equations, we know
fc
ac
=
b+c
a
which implies a 2 = b f + c f .
Proof of the Pythagorean theorem

To prove the Pythagorean theorem, consider a right-angled triangle BFH as shown in
Figure 4. Let the hypotenuse HF be of length r , let BH be of length d, and BF of length
a. We want to prove r 2 = a 2 + d 2 .
Extend the line HB to the right, to a point A such that the lengths of FA and HA are
equal. In other words, such that AHF is isosceles. Let b be the length of AB and c the
length of AF.
By the isosceles lemma, we know r 2 = 2dc, equivalently r 2 = dc + d(d + b).
By the right-angled lemma, we have a 2 = db + dc. These two equations imply
2
r = a2 + d 2.
F
d
r
b
B
Figure 4.
359
This establishes the Pythagorean theorem. There are no surprises in the end, not
after 2,600 years. But it is hoped that the journey, especially the encounter en route
with the isosceles lemma, is of some intrinsic interest to both students and geometers.
Acknowledgment. While the present paper is an exercise in pure geometry, it is the outcome
of a long-standing interest of the author in using geometry to understand economics [2]. I owe
initial interest in this particular topic to a conversation with Arunava Sen. I am grateful to
Tito Cordella, Tapan Mitra, and S. Subramanian for reading through the paper and the proofs,
and for giving many valuable comments; to an anonymous referee of the journal for useful
suggestions; and to Bintao Wang for excellent technical support.
Summary. This paper provides a new, long proof of the Pythagorean theorem. The two lemmas used should be of some intrinsic interest, especially one on isosceles triangles.
References
1. K. Arrow, Social Choice and Individual Values. Wiley, New York, 1951.
2. K. Basu, A geometry of non-Walrasian general equilibrium theory, J. Macroecon. 14 (1992) 87103,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0164-0704(92)90019-5.
3. C. Cavafy, Collected Poems. Trans. D. Mendelsohn. Knopf, New York, 2009.
4. T. L. Heath, The Thirteen Books of Euclids Elements. Dover, Mineola, NY, 1956.
5. J. Geanakoplos, Three brief proofs of Arrows impossibility theorem, Econ. Theory 26 (2005) 211215,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00199-004-0556-7.
6. J. A. Garfield, Pons asinorum, New Engl. J. Educ. 3 (1876) 161.
7. A. Sen, Collective Choice and Social Welfare. Holden-Day, San Francisco, 1970.
8. G. Willans, R. Searle, Down with Skool!: A Guide to School Life for Tiny Pupils and Their Parents. Parrish,
London, 1953.
360
Leonardo da Vincis Proof of the

Pythagorean Theorem
Franz Lemmermeyer
Franz Lemmermeyer (hb3@ix.urz.uni-heidelberg.de)

received his Ph.D. from the University of Heidelberg and
worked at the California State University, San Marcos, and
Bilkent University in Turkey until 2007. Since then, he has
been teaching mathematics at the St. Gertrudis school in
Ellwangen, Germany. He enjoys playing guitar and is
currently developing an interest in reading cuneiform.
While collecting various proofs of the Pythagorean theorem for presenting them in my
class [8], I discovered a beautiful proof credited to Leonardo da Vinci. It is based on
the diagram below; I leave the pleasure of reconstructing the simple proof from this
diagram to the reader.
D
E
E
C
F
B
F
B
Z
L
Z
M
M
N
Since I had decided to give correct references to as many results as possible (if only
to set an example), I started looking at the many presentations of Leonardo da Vincis
proof on the Internet to find out where he had published it. Although this is a very
well-known proof, none of the many sources were able to point me to a book with a
sound reference, let alone to one of Leonardo da Vincis original publications. For this
reason, I gave up and simply remarked, As a rule, one has to be very careful in such
situations, meaning that claims that cannot be verified often turn out to be wrong.
One can easily find dozens of books that credit the proof above to Leonardo da
Vinci, including Maor [10, pp. 104106] and Ostermann & Wanner [14, p. 26].
MSC: 01A55
361
Early appearances of the proof

In print, the story seems to begin in 1790. Templehofs Geometry for Soldiers and
Those Who Are Not includes the proof in question [18, pp. 124126] with the remark
This proof is somewhat roundabout, but it has the advantage that the truth of the
theorem can be made clearly visible.
There is no mention of who discovered the proof.
Before this, it was already popular to compile proofs of the Pythagorean theorem,
e.g., [7, 16] from the mid-18th century. These were the primary sources for an 1819
collection of 32 proofs by Hoffman [4]. A response compilation was published by
Muller in the same year, which includes our proof of interest as number 15 of 18
[12, p. 64] with the annotation
I have known this construction only for a few years now since it has been communicated to me orally.
Hoffman added this proof along with two others in his 1821 second edition with the
confounding comment
In this appendix three proofs are given. The first seems to have been known for
quite a while since it can be found in several older writings. Its discoverer is not
named.
with no clarification about which alteren Schriften he had in mind.
Mullers 1826 follow-up work does include attribution for the proof [13, pp. 7071]:
In this regard I remark that Mr. Hofrath Joh. Tobias Mayer from Gottingen is the
discoverer of the proof that I have given as the fifteenth in my book mentioned
above, Systematic Compilation etc., pages 62 to 64. He had found this proof
already in 1772 and repeatedly presented it in his lectures in Altdorf given in
the years 17791785; it became known in this way. Therefore Tempelhof could
include it in his Geometry for Soldiers published in 1790.
Perhaps Mayer had seen the proof in Mullers book and contacted the author; this is
feasible as Mayer lived until 1830. Hoffman follows suit in subsequent work [5, 6],
referring to Mayer as a very sagacious geometer.
Who was Johann Tobias Mayer? His father, Tobias Mayer (Marbach 1723
Gottingen 1762), is better known, with a society and a museum dedicated to him
in Marburg. The elder Mayer corresponded with Euler and was famous for his accomplishments in astronomy, receiving part of Britains longitude prize for his contribution to improving navigation at sea through his lunar tables [2]. His son Johann Tobias
Mayer was born in Gottingen in 1752 and began lecturing at the university there in
1773. He moved to Altdorf in 1780, to Erlangen in 1786, and back to Gottingen in
1799. He authored various textbooks on practical geometry and differential calculus
and published many articles on physics.
In France, Terquem seemed to have discovered the proof independently in 1838
[19, pp. 103104], explaining
The theorem of Pythagoras being very important, we will give here a new proof
based only on the superposition of figures.
362
Enter Leonardo da Vinci

The first mention of Leonardo da Vinci as the author of this proof comes in Max
Simons 1906 report On the Development of Elementary Geometry in the 19th Century published by the German Union of Mathematicians [15], the organization that
published Hilberts famed Zahlbericht on algebraic numbers. Simons report was
intended for the monumental Encyclopedia of Mathematical Sciences, but Felix Klein
rejected the submission. In fact, in his preface Simon writes
When Mr. Klein finally rejected the review in its present form, it was because
he did not have scientific assistants at his disposal who could verify the bibliographic details of all the references whenever they were mentioned. In fact,
the condition of the slips of papers necessitated an extremely time-consuming
correction.
The passage relevant here is on page 111.
The proof by the hexagon, which was included in very many textbooks, such as
Mehler, is not due to Tedenat (Manuel), but may be found in the second edition
of Hoffmann as number 33 from older writings (Lionardo da Vinci).
Mehlers Fundamental Theorems of Elementary Mathematics was a widely used
textbook published in numerous editions starting in 1859; the hexagon proof is given
without attribution [11, p. 19]. There is a 1799 geometry textbook by Tedenat (with
one accent), but neither of the two proofs given there is the one we are following [17].
Simon probably meant Terquem, who did claim to discover the proof (and whose work
has manuel in the title while Tedenats does not).
Simon makes the attribution for this proof using the same expression for older
writing as Hoffman in his first edition [4]. Perhaps Simon mixed up these writings
with another reference involving Leonardo da Vinci (this is the fourth out of four
references to Leonardo da Vinci in his report). Another explanation could be that some
scientific assistant trying to make sense of Simons collection of slips of papers is
responsible for the mix up.
At the end of Simons memoir, there are two pages listing all kinds of misprints, but
this list of errata is far from complete.
The attribution spreads

The claim that Leonardo da Vinci discovered this proof appeared in Heaths 1908
translation and commentary of Euclids Elements. Heath, who was extremely well
versed in classical mathematics, writes of the proof, It appears to come from one of
the scientific papers of Leonardo da Vinci (14521519) [3, p. 365], citing Simon.
We highlight one more connection, to a well-known collection of some 367 proofs
compiled by Elisha Scott Loomis; this proof is number 46 in his geometric proofs
section [9, p. 129]. The original 1927 edition traces the origin back to Tempelhof (the
author explains that the book was prepared in 1907). The 1940 second edition adds the
attribution to Leonardo da Vinci following a 1924 book by Boon [1, pp. 16, 107] who
credits Heath. (The second edition of Loomiss book was reissued in 1968 and is now
freely available online.)
It remains possible that the proof was found by Leonardo da Vinci; a perusal of
his codices available online shows various sketches involving right triangles, if not
363
something like the telltale figure above. If Leonardo da Vinci did develop this proof,
then I hope that a scholar of his work will provide the details.
It is my belief, however, that the legend of Leonardo da Vincis proof was given
birth by Max Simons 1906 report, from whence it was copied in turn by Heath, Boon,
and Loomis, and then was spread throughout the mathematical literaturenowadays,
the claim that Johann Tobias Mayers proof was found by Leonardo da Vinci can be
found in dozens of books, hundreds of articles, and thousands of web pages.
Acknowledgments. I thank the editor for several suggestions and for providing me with many
details concerning Boons book.
Summary. We present evidence suggesting that the proof of the Pythagorean theorem widely
attributed to Leonardo da Vinci is actually due to J. T. Mayer in the late 18th century.
References
1. F. C. Boon, A Companion to Elementary School Mathematics. Longmans, London, 1924.
2. E. G. Forbes, Tobias Mayers claim for the longitude prize: A study in 18th century Anglo-German relations,
J. Navig. 28 (1975) 7790, http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0373463300025674.
3. T. L. Heath, The Thirteen Books of Euclids Elements. Three volumes. Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1908.
4. J. J. I. Hoffmann, Der Pythagorische Lehrsatz mit zwey und dreysig theils bekannten, theils neuen Beweisen.
Kupferberg, Mainz, Germany, 1819. Second ed., 1821.
5. , Die geometrischen Bucher der Elemente des Euclides; als Leitfaden zum Unterricht in der
Elementar-Geometrie, mit vielen Anmerkungen. Kupferberg, Mainz, Germany, 1829.
6. , Beitrage zur Elementar-Geometrie. Wailandt, Aschaffenburg, Germany, 1848.
7. F. C. Jetze, Dissertatio inauguralis philosophico-mathematica sistens theorematis Pythagorici demonstrationes plures. Grunert, HalleMagdeburg, Germany, 1752.
8. F. Lemmermeyer, Von Ahmes bis Cardano. Ein Loblied auf die binomischen Formeln. In progress.
9. E. S. Loomis, The Pythagorean Proposition. Mohler, Bera, OH, 1927. Second ed., Edwards, Ann Arbor, MI,
1940. Reissued, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Reston, VA, 1968. Available at
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED037335.pdf.
10. E. Maor, The Pythagorean Theorem: A 4000-Year History. Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, 2007.
11. F. G. Mehler, Hauptsatze der Elementar-Mathematik zum Gebrauche an Gymnasien und Realschulen.
Reimer, Berlin, 1859.
12. J. W. Muller, Mathematische und historische Beytrage und Erganzungen zu Johann Joseph Ignaz Hoffmanns
neuester Schrift: der Pythagorische Lehrsatz mit zwey und dreyig Beweisen. Lechner, Nurnberg, Germany,
1819.
13. , Neue Beitrage zu der Parallelen-Theorie, den Beweisen des Pythagoraischen Lehrsatzes und den
Berechnungsarten der Pythagoraischen Zahlendreiecke. Jenisch and Stage, Augsburg and Leipzig, 1826.
14. A. Ostermann, G. Wanner, Geometry by Its History. Springer, Berlin, 2012.
15. M. Simon, Uber

die Entwicklung der Elementar-Geometrie in XIX. Jahrhundert. Teubner, Leipzig, Germany,
1906.
16. J. G. Scherz, E. H. Stober, Dissertatio Mathematica de Theoremate Pythagorico. Argentor, Strasbourg,
France, 1743.
17. P. Tedenat, Lecons e lementaires de geometrie et de trigonometrie. Duprat, Paris, 1799.
18. G. F. von Tempelhof, Geometrie fur Soldaten und die es nicht sind. Unger, Berlin, 1790.
19. O. Terquem, Nouveau manuel de geometrie, ou Exposition e lementaire des principes de cette science. Roret,
Paris, 1838.
364
CLASSROOM CAPSULES
EDITORS
Ricardo Alfaro
Lixing Han
Kenneth Schilling
University of MichiganFlint
ralfaro@umflint.edu
lxhan@umflint.edu
ksch@umflint.edu
Classroom Capsules are short (13 page) notes that contain new mathematical insights on a topic
from undergraduate mathematics, preferably something that can be directly introduced into a college
classroom as an effective teaching strategy or tool. Classroom Capsules should be prepared according
to the guidelines on the inside front cover and submitted through Editorial Manager.
Trigonometric Derivatives Made Easy

Piotr Josevich (piotrjosevich@gmail.com), Essex High School, Essex Junction, VT
Most students who have taken calculus will remember (some with possible trepidation?) the special trigonometric limits
sin x
=1
x0 x
lim
and
cos x 1
= 0.
x0
x
lim
(1)
These typically arise as necessary ingredients in the most common proofs of the rules
for differentiating the basic trigonometric functions,
(sin x) = cos x
and
(cos x) = sin x.
(2)
The usual proof of the first derivative in (2) using the limit definition of the derivative
[1] involves expanding sin(x + h) using an angle sum formula, factoring the resulting
expression, and applying both of the limits in (1). Students are usually required to
demonstrate their understanding of these special limits by computing related limits
such as
sin (3 sin (2 sin x))
.
x0
x
lim
Nevertheless, the importance of such limits is easily misplaced; their role is purely
auxiliary and indeed (1) is nothing more than the special case of (2) when x = 0.
Direct proofs of (1) take about a page or more and are usually banished to an appendix.
Moreover, the insight to be gained from (1)that x must be measured in radians for
(1) and (2) to be correct as statedis easily buried in the details.
The purpose of this note is to identify a particularly simple proof of (2) that does
not require the limits (1). As an added bonus, the argument makes clear why x must
be measured in radians.
To begin, we recall the definition of the two basic trigonometric functions: cos t and
sin t are, respectively, the x- and y-coordinates of the point on the unit circle with angle
t measured from the positive x-axis. Thus, the curve (t) = (cos t, sin t) traverses the
unit circle counterclockwise. Recall that the length of an arc on the unit circle is equal
to the angle it subtends (when measured in radians). Hence, when t is measured in
radians, (t) moves at unit speed.
MSC: 97I40
365
t
O
Figure 1. The point P = (cos t, sin t). The position triangle OPA and velocity triangle
PCB are congruent when t is measured in radians.
Now fix t R. For simplicity, we may assume t [0, /2]. Let O = (0, 0),
P = (t), and A = (cos t, 0). Define points B and C so that PC is the velocity vector
of at P, AP is parallel to PB, and PBC = /2; see Figure 1.
Since PC is tangent to the circle at P, OPC = /2. Since AP and PB are parallel,
AOP = BPC and OPA = PCB. Hence, triangles OPA and PCB are similar.
If t is measured in radians, then |PC| = 1. Since |OP| = 1, triangles OPA and PCB
are actually congruent.
Since PC is the instantaneous velocity of at P and P is in the first quadrant, its
respective x and y-components, BC and PB, satisfy
(cos t) = |BC|
and
(sin t) = |PB|.
Combining this with the congruence of the position and velocity triangles, we have
(cos t) = |AP| = sin t
and
(sin t) = |OA| = cos t,
which proves (2).

Summary. We give geometric proofs of the basic trigonometric derivative formulas, avoiding
the trigonometric limit formulas required in the usual limit definition proofs.
Reference
1. J. Stewart, Calculus. Eighth ed. Cengage, Boston, 2016.
366
Algebraic Characterization of Two Independent Events

Armen Bagdasaryan (bagdasar@member.ams.org), American University of the Middle East, Kuwait, and Josep Batle (jbv276@uib.es), University of the Balearic Islands,
Palma, Spain
This note demonstrates some facts about the probabilities of two independent events
that are usually not presented in the standard course on probability.
We start by considering the probabilities of two independent events A and B using
the geometric interpretation. The events and probabilities are illustrated with the use of
Venn diagrams, as shown in Figure 1. Thus, the space of events E is divided into four
regions: AB, AB, AB, and AB with corresponding probabilities P(AB) = r , P(AB)
= p, P(AB) = q, and P(AB) = s.
AB
AB
AB
AB
Figure 1. Two-event Venn diagrams showing the state spaces and corresponding probabilities.
It is clear that P(A) = p + r and P(B) = q + r ; also, p + q + r + s = 1. From

the independence of A and B, it follows that P(A)P(B) = P(AB), which is equivalent
to ( p + r )(q + r ) = r .
We prove an equivalent statement for two events to be independent and then use it
to give results about the sum of the square roots of their probabilities.
Theorem 1. For two events A and B to be independent, it is necessary and sufficient
that pq = r s, that is, P(AB)P(AB) = P(AB)P(AB).
Proof. To prove both necessity and sufficiency, we use the equality p + q + r +
s = 1 and begin from independence of A and B. We have the following equivalent
relations:
( p + r )(q + r ) = r pq + pr + qr + r 2 = r
pq = r (1 p q r )
pq = r s.
Theorem 2. For the independence of two events A and B, it is necessary that
p+
q 1 and r + s 1.
MSC: 97K50
367
Moreover,
p+
q = 1 if and only if r = s,
and likewise,
r + s = 1 if and only if p = q.
Proof. For necessity, from the conditions r s = pq and p + q + r + s = 1, we have
the following chain of equivalent inequalities:
0 ( r s)2 = r + s 2 r s,
2 r s r + s,
2 r s 1 p q,
p + 2 pq + q 1,
( p + q)2 1,
p + q 1.
Notice that, when r = s, the first inequality becomes an equality, hence the last
inequality becomes anequality
as well.
The inequality for r + s follows similarly, with the analogous equalities resulting when p = q.
It would be interesting to apply the same reasoning and derive similar relations for
three (and more) independent events. Of special interest would be the extension of the
above formulas and inequalities to random variables.
Acknowledgment. The authors wish to thank the editor for help simplifying the proof of
Theorem 1 and for comments that improved the presentation of this paper.
Summary. In this short note, we present an equivalent statement for two independent events
and inequalities related to their probabilities.
368
PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS

EDITORS
Curtis Cooper
Charles N. Curtis
CMJ Problems
Department of Mathematics and
Computer Science
University of Central Missouri
Warrensburg, MO 64093
cmjproblems@maa.org
CMJ Solutions
Mathematics Department
Missouri Southern State University
3950 Newman Road
Joplin, MO 64801
cmjsolutions@maa.org
This section contains problems intended to challenge students and teachers of college mathematics.
We urge you to participate actively both by submitting solutions and by proposing problems that are
new and interesting. To promote variety, the editors welcome problem proposals that span the entire
undergraduate curriculum.
Proposed problems should be sent to Curtis Cooper, either by email (preferred) as a pdf, TEX, or
Word attachment or by mail to the address provided above. Whenever possible, a proposed problem
should be accompanied by a solution, appropriate references, and any other material that would be
helpful to the editors. Proposers should submit problems only if the proposed problem is not under
consideration by another journal.
Solutions to the problems in this issue should be sent to Chip Curtis, either by email as a pdf,
TEX, or Word attachment (preferred) or by mail to the address provided above, no later than February
15, 2017.
PROBLEMS
1086. Proposed by Michel Bataille, Rouen, France.
Let AB be a given line segment with length c > 0. Construct a right-angled triangle
whose legs a, b satisfy a 2/3 + b2/3 = c2/3 using a ruler and square set (a drafting tool
with a right angle, also known as a set square).
1087. Proposed by Ian Cavey (student), Boise State University, Boise, ID.
Let R(n) denote the regular n-gon with unit sides. Define Center(n) to be the set of
interior points of R(n) whose distance to each of the n vertices is greater than 1.
(a) Show that Center(n) is empty for n 6.
(b) Determine the area of Center(n) for n > 6.
1088. Proposed by Eugen J. Ionascu, Columbus State University, Columbus, GA.
Let f be a differentiable function such that, for some a, b satisfying 0 < a < b < 1,
we have
1
a
f (x) d x
f (x) d x
0
+ b
= 0.
a(1 a)
b(1 b)
Let K =
a
0 f (x) d x
a(1a)
, the first summand. Prove that

1
0

ba
sup | f (x) + 2K |.
f (x) d x
2
x(0,1)
369

1089. Proposed by Angel
Plaza, University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain.
Prove that if x, y, z 1, then
1
1
1
1
1
3
1
+
+
+
+
1+x
1+y
1+z
1 + xy
1 + yz
1 + zx
1 + 3 x yz
1090. Proposed by Ovidiu Furdui and Alina Sntamarian, Technical University of ClujNapoca, Romania.
Find all nonconstant, differentiable functions f : R R that satisfy the functional
equation f (x + y) f (x y) = 2 f (x) f (y) for all x, y R.
SOLUTIONS
An inequality between Holder

and Lehmer means
1061. Proposed by Arkday Alt, San Jose, CA.
Let m n 2 be positive integers. Prove that for any positive real numbers a and b,

a m + bm
a m1 + bm1
n+1
a n+1 + bn+1
.
2
Solution by Northwestern University Math Problem Solving Group.

The inequality is equivalent to
L m (a, b) Mn+1 (a, b)
for integers m n 2, where L p (a, b) is the p-th Lehmer mean of a and b and
M p (a, b) is the p-th power mean of a and b:
L p (a, b) =
ap + bp
,
p1
a
+ b p1

M p (a, b) =
ap + bp
2
1/ p
.
Here, we will prove the stronger result that, if p and q are real numbers such that
, then
p 1 and q p+1
2
L q (a, b) M p (a, b).
Note that the original inequality follows from this result by letting p = n + 1, q = m,
.
and showing m n 2 implies p 1 and q p+1
2
For the proof, note that L q (a, b) is increasing in q. This can be proved by logarithmic differentiation:
a q log a + bq log b a q1 log a + bq1 log b
d
log L q (a, b) =
dq
a q + bq
a q1 + bq1
=
a q1 bq1 (a b)(log a log b)

0.
(a q + bq )(a q1 + bq1 )
Hence, all we need to prove is L p+1 (a, b) M p (a, b) for p 1.

2
370
Assume without loss of generality that a b and let x = b/a. After dividing both
sides of the inequality by a, it becomes L p+1 (1, x) M p (1, x) with x 1. For x = 1,
2
the inequality becomes equality, so all we need to prove is that L p+1 (1, x) grows faster
2
than M p (1, x) as x 1 increases. To that end, we compute
p+1 p1
p1 p3

x 2
x 2
d
x p1
2
2
log L p+1 (1, x) log M p (1, x) =

p+1
p1
2
dx
1 + xp
1+x 2
1+x 2
p3
2
[( p 1)x p+1 ( p + 1)x p + ( p + 1)x p + 1]

.
p+1
p1
1 + x 2 (1 + x p )
2 1+x 2
It suffices now to prove that f p (x) 0 for x 1 where

f p (x) = ( p 1)x p+1 ( p + 1)x p + ( p + 1)x p + 1.
In fact, we have
f p (x) = ( p + 1)( p 1)x p ( p + 1) px p1 + p + 1
and
f p (x) = ( p + 1) p( p 1)x p1 ( p + 1) p( p 1)x p2
= ( p + 1) p( p 1)x p2 (x 1).
Note that f p (1) = f p (1) = f p (1) = 0. Also, for x 1, we have f p (x) 0, hence
f p (x) is nondecreasing, so f p (x) 0 for x 1, which implies that f p (x) is also
nondecreasing, and f p (x) 0 for x 1.
Extension. Note that f p (x) 0 for x 1 if p (1, 0) (1, ), and f p (x) 0
for x 1 if p (, 1) (0, 1). So by the reasoning above, we have the following
more general results.
1. If p (1, 0) (1, ), then L p+1 (a, b) M p (a, b). The inequality becomes
2
equality precisely for a = b.
2. If p (, 1) (0, 1), then L p+1 (a, b) M p (a, b). The inequality becomes
2
equality precisely for a = b.
3. For p {, 1, 0, 1, }, the equality becomes an identity:
L (a, b) = M (a, b) = min{a, b},

L 0 (a, b) = M1 (a, b) = 1 +2 1 , the harmonic mean of a and b,
a b
L 1/2 (a, b) = M0 (a, b) = ab, the geometric mean of a and b,

L 1 (a, b) = M1 (a, b) = a+b
, the arithmetic mean of a and b,
2
L (a, b) = M (a, b) = max{a, b}, respectively.
Also solved by ROBERT AGNEW, Buffalo Grove, IL, and Palm Coast, FL; M ICHEL BATAILLE, Rouen, France;
B RIAN B RADIE, Christopher Newport U.; H ONGWEI C HEN, Christopher Newport U.; J OHN C HRISTOPHER,
California State U. Sacramento; E UGENE H ERMAN, Grinnell C.; PANAGIOTIS K RASOPOULOS, Athens, Greece;
E LIAS L AMPAKIS, Kiparissia, Greece; K EE -WAI L AU, Hong Kong, China; PAOLO P ERFETTI, U. Rome Tor
Vergata, Italy; and the proposer. One incomplete solution was received.
371
Correction to 1062. Proposed by D. M. Batinetu-Giurgiu, Matei Basarab National

College, Bucharest, Romania, and Neculai Stanciu, George Emil Palade Secondary
School, Buzau, Romania.
Consider a nonisosceles triangle with sidelengths a, b, c and area S. Prove that
b6
c6
a6
+
+
>
4
3S.
(a)
(a 2 b2 )(a 2 c2 ) (b2 a 2 )(b2 c2 ) (c2 a 2 )(c2 b2 )
b6
c6
a6
+
+
>
4
3S.
(b)
(a b)2 (a c)2
(b a)2 (b c)2
(c a)2 (c b)2
This correction to Problem 1062 appeared in the March 2016 issue of The College
Mathematics Journal. Its solution will be published in the March 2017 issue.
An inequality for nonisosceles triangles

1063. Proposed by D. M. Batinetu-Giurgiu, Matei Basarab National College, Bucharest, Romania, and Neculai Stanciu, George Emil Palade Secondary School, Romania.
Let ABC be a nonisosceles triangle with sides a, b, c and inradius r . Prove that
b8
a8
+
(b + c)(a b)2 (a c)2
(a + c)(b a)2 (b c)2
+
3
c8
>
144
3r .
(a + b)(c a)2 (c b)2
Solution by Arkday Alt, San Jose, CA.

By the CauchySchwarz inequality,

cyc

1
a8
a4

(b + c)(a b)2 (a c)2

(a b)(a c)
(b + c)
cyc
cyc
or equivalently

cyc
a8
1
2
2
(b + c)(a b) (a c)
4s

cyc
a4
(a b)(a c)
2
.
where s is the semiperimeter. Since

cyc

cyc
a4
= a 2 + b2 + c2 + ab + ac + bc,
(a b)(a c)
(a 2 + b2 + c2 + ab + ac + bc)2
a8
.
(b + c)(a b)2 (a c)2

4s
Note that
a 2 + b2 + c2 + ab + ac + bc
372
2
8s 2
(a + b + c)2 =
.
3
3
Indeed,
3(a 2 + b2 + c2 + ab + ac + bc) 2(a + b + c)2 = a 2 + b2 + c2 ab bc ca
is nonnegative. The expression is zero if and only if a = b = c, but triangle ABC is
nonisosceles. Therefore,

cyc

8
a
>
(b + c)(a b)2 (a c)2
8s 2
3
4s
2
=
16s 3
.
9
Noting that s 3 3r , we finally obtain

cyc
16(3 3r )3
a8
16s 3
= 144 3r 3 .
>
2
2
(b + c)(a b) (a c)
9
9
Also solved by the proposer. One incorrect solution was received.
Correction to 1064. Proposed by Mircea Merca, University of Craiova, Romania.

Let n be a positive integer. Prove that
0<

n

k
1 22n
2n
< 1.
cos2n+1
2n + 1
n
k=1
This correction to Problem 1064 appeared in the March 2016 issue of The College
Mathematics Journal. Its solution will be published in the March 2017 issue.
Two inequalities for complex numbers

1065. Proposed by Jose Daz-Barrero, Technical University of Catalonia, Barcelona,
Spain.
Let n 0 be an integer, and let , a0 , a1 , . . . , an , b0 , b1 , . . . , bn be complex numbers.
Prove that
n

n

1
ak bk
|ak |2 + ||2
|bk |2 .
(a) Re
2
k=0
k=0
k=0
n

n

(2n
+
1)(2n
+
3)
1
ak bk
|ak |2 +
|bk |2 .
(b) Re
2(n
+
1)
3
k=0
k=0
k=0
Solution by Eugene Herman, Grinnell College, Grinnell, IA.
We prove stronger versions of both (a) and (b):
n
n

n

1

ak bk
|ak |2 + ||2
|bk |2 .
(a )

2
k=0
k=0
k=0
n
n

n

1

(b )
ak bk
|ak |2 + L
|bk |2 , whenever 0 < K and K 2 L.

2K
k=0
k=0
k=0
373
Note that the coefficients in (b ) do not depend on n and that (n + 1)2 (2n+1)(2n+3)
3
for all real numbers n 0.
For (a ), let x =
a0 , a1 , . . . , an and y =
b0 , b1 , . . . , bn . Then, using the
CauchySchwarz inequality and 2ab a 2 + b2 ,
n

n
n

2
ak bk = 2|
x, y| 2x y x2 + y2 =
|ak |2 + ||2
|bk |2

k=0
k=0
k=0
For (b ), let x =

a0 , a1 , . . . , an and y =
b0 , b1 , . . . , bn . By the same two
inequalities,
n

1
1

K y x2 + K y2
ak bk = 2|
x, y| 2x y = 2 x
2

K
K
k=0
n

n

1
1
(x2 + Ly2 ) =
|ak |2 + L
|bk |2
K
K k=0
k=0
Also solved by A DNAN A LI, Mumbai, India (part (b)); M ICHEL BATAILLE, Rouen, France; B ILL D UNN,
Montgomery C.; D MITRY F LEISCHMAN, Santa Monica, CA (part (b)); E LIAS L AMPAKIS, Kiparissia, Greece;
W ILLIAM S EAMAN, Bethlehem, PA; and the proposer.
Please note that we now have MAA email addresses for submitting problems and
solutions. Rather than using the editors university email addresses, please use
CMJproblems@maa.org and CMJsolutions@maa.org, respectively.
Editors Note. Wei-Kai Lai of the University of South Carolina Salkehatchie was omitted from the list of solvers of problem 1045 in the January 2016 issue.
374
BOOK REVIEW
My Search for Ramanujan: How I Learned to Count by Ken Ono and Amir D. Aczel,
Springer International Publishing, Cham, Switzerland, 2016, xvi + 238 pp., ISBN 9783-319-25566-8, $29.99 (hardback), 978-3-319-25568-2, $19.99 (electronic).
Reviewed by Brian Hopkins (bhopkins@saintpeters.edu), Saint Peters University,
Jersey City, NJ
While in graduate school, we organized a program for the Preparing Future Faculty initiative where mathematicians discussed their career paths. Fortunately, we had pizza
and beer to keep the graduate students engaged because all but one faculty account
came down to I was always good at math, so I thought I should become a math professor, and I did. The exception was a professor whose initial ambition to work assembly
at Boeing was foiled by a badly timed broken leg; he ended up in a calculus class for
premedical students that awakened a love of mathematics (a story to remember when
we teach service classes). Still, each account, once on the mathematical track, went
from success to success to professorship.
Such a program today at Emory University, where Ken Ono is on the faculty, would
have at least one very different and riveting account. Fortunately, that story has been
written by Ono and Amir Aczel for a wide audience. This assisted autobiography
illustrates in close detail the personal difficulties Ono went through before his current success. As the title suggests, Srinivasa Ramanujan plays an important role, not
just mathematically.
In fact, there is not much mathematical content in the book, although that restraint
gives way in the last 11 pages. The central story is Onos life through the year 2000,
but the interconnected accounts span four countries and more than 100 years. Ono and
Aczel have written a very engaging and readable book about the lives of several mathematicians focusing on themes of isolation, generosity, and finding oneself, portrayed
with many interesting connections and parallels. There are moving accounts of caring
and effective mentors along with some cautionary tales of debilitating discouragement.
Tiger cage
The young Ken Ono was good at math by almost any standard, but he did not meet
his immigrant parents expectations. His father, noted mathematician Takashi Ono,
escaped the isolation and deprivations of postwar Japan through hard work and the
generous support of Andre Weil, who attended a legendary 1955 TokyoNikko conference on algebraic number theory. Takashi and his wife Sachiko first came to Princeton and then settled near Baltimore, following the mathematicians appointments at
the Institute for Advanced Study and Johns Hopkins University. They were the only
Asian-American family in their Maryland neighborhood. Between the lingering American postwar animosity toward Japanese and their dream of returning to Japan, the Ono
family took on something of the kaikin policy isolation enforced during Japans Tokugawa period.
Borrowing the terminology popularized by Amy Chua, Ken and his two brothers
grew up in a tiger cage in stark contrast to the lives of their classmates. Each son had
a prestigious life planned out by his parents, and there was no room for activities that
375
Figure 1. Ken Ono in second grade.
did not contribute to those goals. The book opens with a young Ken stealthily watching
Gilligans Island while his parents are away, ready with ice water and a washcloth
to cool the television set in case they return unexpectedly. Around the same time,
when he scored in the 98th percentile in mathematics and 97th percentile in reading
comprehension on a standardized test given to third grade students, his parents rebuke
informed a negative voice that would plague him for years. It spoke against his selfesteem in a pidgin English.
Ken-chan, one in fifty people did better in math. Even more better in English.
Thats fifty thousand kids in country. You arent even among best fifty thousand.
Harvard only accepts few thousand. . . We sacrifice everything for you three boys,
and this is how you thank us?
Kens designated path was to become a second generation prestigious mathematician (and excel at violin). His often distant father connected with Ken around
mathematics, such as telling stories about great mathematicians and playing a prized
recording of a David Hilbert lecture. There is a warm account of Takashi teaching a
grade-school Ken about Fermats little theorem in the guise of a trick.
Ken-chan, pick a number that isnt a multiple of 7. Id pick a number, such as
13. Now raise it to the sixth power and subtract 1. Id run around the corner of
his giant steel desk, to my little kiddie desk, and Id work it out by hand. After a
minute or so, Id arrive at the answer: 4,826,808. I bet thats a multiple of 7. Ill
take that bet, I thought. He has only a 1 in 7 chance of being right, and Ill take
those odds any day. And Id run back to my kiddie desk, and I would divide 7
into this large number, and I found that he was right: 4,826,808 = 7 689,544.
Id say something like, You got lucky. Lets do it again.
Later, Takashi would have Ken write programs on a brand new Apple II to compute
class numbers of quadratic forms for the Hopkins graduate students.
But even with Kens proficiency, the pressure became too much. He began to stand
up for himself, taking up cycling in seventh grade, racing in distant contests by high
school, quitting violin and the Peabody Preparatory Orchestra in tenth grade. Soon
376
after, he dropped out of high school and left home, a course of events surprisingly
related to his first knowledge of Ramanujan.
Takashi Ono was one of some 100 mathematicians who contributed to an effort,
coordinated by Richard Askey, to have a bust of Ramanujan designed, cast, and
installed in India. Janaki Ammal, Ramanujans widow, sent thank you notes to the
contributors. Kens father was deeply moved by the letter and told his son about
Ramanujan. Ken focused on one detail: Ramanujan had dropped out of college yet
went on to mathematical greatness. With that example, he eventually got his parents
permission to leave home without finishing high school.
Ramanujan and quieting the voices

The account above (with some more about his parents and Japan during and after the
war) makes up the first of the books four parts. With Ramanujans oblique entry into
Kens life, the second part is a condensed biography of Ramanujan. This material is
probably familiar to most readers of this J OURNAL and now, with the film The Man
Who Knew Infinity, to a wider audience. (A review of the film follows on p. 381.) The
account here is enriched by connections to the rest of the book and popular culture
references. For example, parallels are drawn between the mathematical isolation of
Ramanujans India and Takashi Onos postwar Japan. Ramanujans distraction from
school work is described in modern terms:
Imagine a college student who is so consumed by video games that he is failing
all his classes. He even forgets to eat, shower, and sleep. If we replaced video
games by equations and formulas, then this would have been Ramanujan.
Returning to Ken Onos story in the third and fourth parts, he managed a good year
with a brother after leaving high school and started at the University of Chicago at age
17. It was a rough transition (comments on a sociology paper given an F began It is
obvious to me that you do not understand much of Marx at all.), and he was dogged
by his fathers reputation and his parents expectations. The voice continued in the new
setting, mentioning a much younger special admission student strong in mathematics.
Ken-chan, you no can hide. Your professors know family, so it your duty to live
up to name Ono. You must be one of the best, and right now you losing to out to
ten-year-old kid with Pac-Man watch.
Higher education continued with a professors advice to change fields, qualifying
examinations that he barely passed, and a debacle of a first conference talk that led to a
professor yelling that Ono had wasted his time. There were high points as well, including meeting his future wife Erika and starting to work on Ramanujans mathematics.
But Ono gives the credit for his eventual success to three mentors: Paul Sally at the
University of Chicago; Basil Gordon, his graduate thesis advisor at the University of
California Los Angeles; and Andrew Granville, then at the University of Georgia, who
arranged a postdoctoral position for Ono.
Although the chapter on Granville is titled My Hardy, Gordon receives the most
pages of these three mentors. Ono and Gordon met regularly on Saturday afternoons,
often beginning with music or literature before moving on to mathematics. Ken
Onos understanding of mathematics changed radically, resonating with the complete
concentration of solo training rides on his bicycle.
377
Figure 2. Ken Ono and Basil Gordon in 1992 (photo by Keith Kendig).
From Basil Gordon I learned what it means to do mathematics. . . . Doing mathematics is a mental voyage in which clarity of thought and openness to insight
make it possible to see the deeper beauty of a mathematical structure, to enter
a world where triumph over a problem depends less on conscious effort than on
confidence, creativity, determination, and intellectual rigor.
Andrew Wiless work on Fermats last theorem came at an opportune time for Ono,
highlighting his small corner of mathematics that was an ingredient in the proof.
Ken Onos path continued to a visiting assistant professorship at the University of
Illinois and a two-year membership at the Institute for Advanced Study. Ken was able
to host his parents there, almost 40 years after their time living in Princeton. They had
a sweet reconciliation, finally silencing the negative voices that had long plagued the
son, initiating a warm adult relationship.
Multiple endings
The detailed chronology continues through Ken Onos time at Pennsylvania State
University, where he and George Andrews hosted a conference in honor of Basil Gordon. Ono also proved a remarkable result, the most exciting and significant work
on congruences for the ordinary partition function since the inaugural conjectures of
Ramanujan in 1919 [2], circling back to the mathematician of the books title. This
section ends with another meeting with Takashi Ono, on the occasion of Bill Clinton presenting the younger Ono a Presidential Early Career Award for outstanding
378
contributions to number theory and for unusual talent for fostering mathematical abilities in students at different levels [5]. The heartwarming details of the interaction
between father and son are left for the readers enjoyment.
Stylistically, that would have been a strong ending for the book, but there are four
more sections. One summarizes a motivational TEDxEmory talk that highlights some
the biographical details given above [4]. The last official chapter explains the spiritual
lives of both generations of Onos in contrast to the agnosticism of Kens childhood.
An epilogue of 17 pages and an afterword of 16 pages are longer the chapters (which
average just under six pages each) and cover a few highlights in contrast to the thorough biographical details through the year 2000. The epilogue covers three events. In
2005, Ono spoke at a conference in India and visited Ramanujans childhood home
and the Sarangapani Temple where his mother sang and worshippers etched special
numbers on the walls; perhaps one from Ramanujan himself? At the end of 2014, Ono
began an association with the film The Man Who Knew Infinity that quickly went from
assisting with props to being in charge of the mathematics, working with Jeremy Irons
and Dev Patel (playing Hardy and Ramanujan, respectively) on their dialogue. Finally,
there is an account of recent research extending various of Ramanujans results with
several collaborators.
The afterword includes an assessment of Ramanujan as a great anticipator of mathematical developments and shows a throughline from topics discussed at the 1955
conference attended by Takashi Ono to the proof of Fermats last theorem. And, as if
the authors could no longer hold back, the final pages are dedicated to mathematical
gems of Ramaujans mathematics, including the famous story of the number 1729
taxi, highly composite numbers, and his tau function.
Mathematics and popular culture

This is an unusual Springer book: It is all about mathematicians doing mathematics,
but the authors are careful to write for a general audience, omitting most mathematical
details (at least until the afterword). This helps focus the work on the personal development and interpersonal relations of the characters. The topics selected for some
detailcontinued fractions, integer partitions, a particular quadratic formseem to
be at an appropriate level for mathematics amateur readers (and safely skippable for
readers averse to mathematical detail). However, patience is sometimes required; for
example, continued fractions are mentioned 20 pages before they are defined and discussed with examples. Readers interested in more mathematics will appreciate the end
of the afterword and may also enjoy an oral history on Ramanujans lost notebooks,
featuring George Andrews, Bruce Berndt, and Ono [6].
The book is rich with references to popular culture and modern turns of phrase,
helping ground it in time and emphasizing the human element. In addition to examples
mentioned above, Willy Wonka is referenced twice when things are going especially
well, and you should read about the conditions under which the young Ken was
allowed to watch the original Star Wars film before you invite him to the latest installation in the series. Squirrels causing Internet problems must like the taste, or at the
mouthfeel, of cables. In deciding what kind of research to pursue related to Ramanujans mathematics, the authors use the metaphor of choosing between a secure position
in a large firm or forming a start-up (Ono chose the latter).
While Ono is the primary subject of the book, it is also perhaps the final work from
Amir Aczel who died unexpectedly last year [3]. After writing statistics textbooks,
Aczel wrote a lay account on the history and modern proof of Fermats last theorem
379
[1], still his most popular book. Several more popular books on mathematical and
scientific topics followed, ranging from the ancient Khmer origins of zero to Nicolas
Bourbaki (along with updates of the statistics textbooks).
The book under review is a moving account of overcoming debilitating expectations. The pervasive self-doubt, given voice over a dozen times, can wear on the reader,
but perhaps that is intentional to help us feel its tenacious grip. The authors effectively
communicate the excitement and beauty of advanced mathematics without requiring
technical background. The collective hero of the interconnected stories is the generous mentor who recognizes talent and provides opportunities for growth and success.
We need more accounts of these important relationships: Hardy and Ramanujan are a
well-known example; the chapter here documenting Basil Gordons time as Ken Onos
thesis advisor is an especially warm addition.
Rarely are we given an inside view of the personal struggles of an accomplished
mathematician, and tributes to mentors are often reserved for banquet dinners at conferences tied to the honorees 65th, 70th, etc. birthday. Ono and Aczel have given a
highly readable treatment of these issues that will be appreciated by several readers:
graduate students searching for models for their future, faculty wanting motivation to
be effective mentors, and all readers inspired by a lively account of overcoming difficulties to achieve great success in the beautiful world of mathematics.
References
1. A. Aczel, Fermats Last Theorem: Unlocking the Secret of an Ancient Mathematical Problem. Reprint of the
1996 original. Basic, New York, 2007.
2. B. C. Berndt, Review of distribution of the partition function modulo m by K. Ono. Math. Rev. M1745012
(2000).
3. W. Grimes, Amir Aczel, 65; Wrote scientific cliffhanger, New York Times, December 9, 2015,
B15, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/08/science/amir-aczel-author-of-scientific-cliff
hanger-dies-at-65.html.
4. K. Ono. Live mathematically, but not by the numbers. TEDxEmory, 2015, http://tedxtalks.ted.com/
video/Live-Mathematically-But-Not-by.
5. President honors top junior faculty in science and engineering, National Science Foundation Office of Legislative and Public Affairs, April 2000, https://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/press/00/pr0022.htm.
6. R. P. Schneider, Uncovering Ramanujans lost notebook: An oral history, Ramanujan J. 29 (2012) 324,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11139-012-9445-z.
380
FILM REVIEW
The Man Who Knew Infinity, directed by Matthew Brown, 1 hour 48 minutes, Edward
R. Pressman Film, 2015.
Reviewed by Jennifer Wilson (wilsonj@newschool.edu), Eugene Lang College, The
New School, New York, NY
As most readers of this J OURNAL are probably aware, the recent film The Man Who
Knew Infinity is a biopic about the life of Ramanujan and his collaboration with
G. H. Hardy. Arriving on the heels of 2014s banner year for math-related films,
including The Imitation Game and The Theory of Everything, The Man Who Knew
Infinity is based on the book of the same title by Robert Kanigel [5]. Prior depictions
of Ramanujan include Complicites theatrical production A Disappearing Number
and the 2014 Indian film Ramanujan directed by Gnana Rajasekaran and produced in
Ramanujans native Tamil and English. Number theorist and lost notebook discoverer George Andrews has recently written a review-cum-reminiscence of the current
film for the Notices of the AMS [1]; Alexandra Brancombe discusses it in the MAA
Focus [2].
Although Ramanujans history and accomplishments are familiar to mathematicians, he is less well-known to the general public. Screenwriter and director Matthew
Brown aims to bring his story to a wider audience. Filmed in Madras and Cambridge
(among other locations), the story unfolds amid colorful scenes rich with historical
detail. Opening images of Ramanujan covering the temple floor with chalked equations give way to scenes of him skirting the hallowed grass of the Trinity College
courtyard where the iconic figures of Bertrand Russell and John Littlewood populate
the common rooms. Unlike similar-feeling Merchant Ivory movies based on the novels
of E. M. Forster (a friend of Hardys), however, the films true subject is mathematics.
Previous theatrical stories of mathematicians (such as Proof and Good Will Hunting)
direct their attention to the characters. The Man Who Knew Infinity instead uses the
relationship between Ramanujan and Hardy as a lens through which to understand
why mathematicians are drawn to their work and to explore the nature of mathematical
knowledge and collaboration. In this, the filmmakers were assisted by mathematicians
Manjul Barghava and Ken Ono; the latters recent book My Search for Ramanujan
(coauthored with Amir Aczel) [6] is reviewed in this issue (p. 375). An interesting
and accessible discussion of Ramanujans work and the way the film does and does
not capture the process of mathematical creation can be found in James Propps blog
Mathematical Enchantments [7].
The film
The narrative focuses on the five-year period between 1914 and 1919 when Ramanujan
(played by Dev Patel) and Hardy (Jeremy Irons) worked together at Trinity College,
Cambridge. We learn little of Ramanujans background or education; we are introduced to him as a young clerk at the Madras Port Trust Office supporting his wife
Janaki (Devika Bhise) and mother Komalatammal (Arundathi Nag) and working on
mathematics at night. Encouraged by a sympathetic boss, he writes letters to several
prominent mathematicians asking for their opinion and assistance with publication.
381
G. H. Hardy is the only one who takes him seriously. About the letter, Hardy famously
said,
I had never seen anything like [these results] before. . . they must be true because,
if they were not true, no one would have had the imagination to invent them. [3]
After consultation with Littlewood, Hardy arranges for Ramanujan to travel to
Cambridge where their collaboration begins.
Much of the films drama lies in the contrasting experience, motivations, and mathematical styles of Ramanujan and Hardy. Ramanujan is self-taught, a mathematician
with deep intuition but little formal training. Hardy, by contrast, was already wellknown for bringing rigor to analytic methods and is determined to teach or corral
Ramanujan into providing formal reasoning for his results. Despite warnings from
Littlewood and Russell (played by Toby Jones and Jeremy Northam, respectively) not
to rein in Ramanujans talents, Hardy insists Ramanujan complete his proofs before
publishing.
Its not that I cant see what youve claimed, its that Im not sure you know how
you got there. Or indeed that your claims are correct. There are subtleties that
. . . intuition is not enough; it has to be held accountable.
Figure 1. Jeremy Irons as Hardy (photo by Sam Pressman and Richard Blanshard).
Ramanujan initially resists, partly because he has so many results to publish, but
mostly because he is already convinced of their correctness. Eventually, Ramanujan
accedes; it is never clear whether he actually agrees. As their collaboration progresses,
we see Hardy and Ramanujan working together on his prime number theorem and later
applying Hardys circle method to studying the asymptotic behavior of the partition
function, Ramanujans insights sharpened and made rigorous through Hardys analytic
techniques.
382
Many of Hardys colleagues are skeptical of Ramanujans talents, for professional

and other less credible reasons, and the tension is heightened when Hardy loses
a vote to have Ramanujan elected a fellow of Trinity College. To reinvigorate the
disheartened Ramanujan, Hardy suggests Ramanujan complete his work on partitions. He challenges the local combinatorics expert, Major Percy MacMahon (Kevin
MacNally), to take Ramanujan seriously by agreeing to manually calculate the number of partitions of the number 200. One of the films high points is the scene in
which Ramanujan arrives at MacMahons office with the results of his asymptotic
approximation virtually matching MacMahons figure. Portrayed as an initial sceptic,
MacMahon is won over.
Figure 2. Dev Patel (left) as Ramanujan and Kevin MacNally (right) as MacMahon (photo by
Sam Pressman and Richard Blanshard).
Toward the end of the film, Ramanujan falls ill with tuberculosis and decides to
complete his work with Hardy so that he can return to his family. The final events of
the story follow quickly: the completion of his partition theorem, his acceptance as
Fellow of the Royal Society (and subsequently at Trinity), and his leaving for home.
His death, one year later, is shown in flashbacks interspersed with scenes of Hardys
paying tribute to him at his Cambridge memorial.
Themes
Recurring motifs help to maintain the films tight focus. Mathematics is depicted
largely through the act of writing: Ramanujan using chalk on the floor of the temple
(reputedly because paper was scarce); cramming his notebooks with tersely worded
statements of his results; reveling in Cambridge at the large stack of blank paper in his
rooms; working with Hardy at a chalk board; hallucinating, when ill, that equations
are writhing on his arms.
A sense of history-making is elicited through repeated images of walking feet. The
actual Ramanujan was famously uncomfortable in Western clothes. In the film, we
383
watch as Ramanujan, transformed by an English suit, switches from sandals to proper

(if uncomfortable) shoes and back to sandals. We see him pausing at the entrance
to Trinity College for the first time and subsequently enduring scolding for running
across the courtyard grass. During an early moment of despair, Ramanujan stumbles
into the antechamber of the chapel surrounded by statues of former Trinity fellows and
finds solace by paying tribute at the stone feet of Newton. And we watch Ramanujans
strides as Hardy takes him to the Wren library to view Newtons Principia Mathematica. The significance of the written record and the suggestion that Ramanujan is
following in great mathematicians footsteps are brought together in the films final
image of Ramanujans lost notebook now on display in this same library.
Omissions
While hewing closely to the truth, the film necessarily leaves out many details of
Ramanujans life, including no more than a passing reference to his Brahmin status
and his abbreviated university career. Ramanujan left few reflections behind about his
thought processes and feelings regarding his time in Cambridge. So we are left with
the words of Hardy and his contemporaries to flesh out the details of their relationship. Several statements made by Hardy in the film come directly from C. P. Snows
introduction to Hardys A Mathematicians Apology [4]. Snow also describes Hardys
discomfort in social situations, his dedication to logic and formal reasoning, his love
of cricket, and his adamant atheism. Like the more vocal Bertrand Russell, Hardy was
against Britains participation in what we now know as World War I. His involvement
in college protests did not cause him to be forced out of Trinity, as did Russells, but
provides additional fodder in the film for the tension between him and his more conservative colleagues. Hardy refers ruefully to his own social diffidence and deafness
to the ordinary niceties of friendship, but the film does not touch upon Hardys homosexuality or any romantic leanings he might have harbored toward Ramanujan. (The
film does, however, open with Hardys statement, My association with him is the one
romantic incident of my life. [3])
The film leaves other things unspoken. Tellingly, the film does not make clear
exactly what prompts Hardy to respond to Ramanujans letter, aside from a disinterested appreciation of mathematical talent. After an evening with Littlewood spent
assessing the letters claims, Hardy says flatly much better let him rot away in his
office in Madras. Yet the next scene shows Ramanujan preparing to make the journey to England. C. P. Snow remarked that Hardy was comfortable with people of all
class and education and had little patience for elitism. His radicalism was impersonal,
but real, and in later years he was involved in the labor movement, briefly serving as
President of the Association of Scientific Workers.
The issue of race appears frequently if not always directly. Fellows at Trinity speak
dismissively of Ramanujan, and, in one war-time incident, he is beaten by soldiers and
left lying on the street. When Hardy asks him why he thinks his colleagues want him
to fail, Ramanujan replies it is because he is Indian. Hardy answers matter of factly
well there is that, but then goes on to suggest what was for him the more relevant
factor of professional jealousy.
The central tension in the film, however, remains Ramanujan and Hardys disagreement about the roles of intuition and proof in mathematics. In a climatic sense at the
hospital, Ramanujan tells Hardy that his ideas come from the goddess Namagiri who
causes them to appear fully formed in his mind. An equation has no meaning to me
unless it expresses the thought of God. Hardy, while revering Ramanujans talents,
384
cannot accept this. A letter from Littlewood to Hardy, sent during Littlewoods time
at the front, offers a more subtle look at this conundrum. In a few short sentences, he
notes that he has disproved Ramanujans prime number theorem but then states that
Ramanujan is a genius of the order of Euler or Jacobi whose inspiration and talents
must be fostered and treasured. In this way, the film hints at the more complex truths
lying behind this apparent dichotomy: that intuition is necessary but can be wrong,
that mathematical ideas arise in many different ways, and that intuition and rigor play
integral and interrelated roles in the act of mathematical creation.
Moving forward
The film, which was ten years in the making, was a labor of love for director Matthew
Brown and producer Edward Pressman. Inspired by the idea that, as Littlewood says,
great knowledge often comes from the humblest of origins, the filmmakers have
teamed with Expii, an online education platform, to create the Spirit of Ramanujan Talent Initiative (https://www.expii.com/ramanujan). Sponsored by the Templeton
Foundation, the mathematics competition is open to all students; this inaugural round
closes December 1. Finalists will receive support for summer research projects and for
attending the 2017 Joint Mathematics Meeting in Atlanta. Perhaps you will see them
there.
References
1. G. Andrews, The Man Who Knew Infinity: A report on the movie, Notices Amer. Math. Soc. 63 (2016)
178180, http://dx.doi.org/10.1090/noti1349.
2. A. Branscombe, Ramanujan goes to Hollywood, MAA Focus 36(3) (June/July 2016) 67.
3. G. H. Hardy, Ramanujan. Cambridge Univ. Press, London, 1940.
4. , A Mathematicians Apology. Cambridge Univ. Press, London, 1940.
5. R. Kanigel, The Man Who Knew Infinity. Washington Square, New York, 1991.
6. K. Ono, A. Aczel, My Search for Ramanujan: How I Learned to Count. Springer, New York, 2016.
7. J. Propp, The Man Who Knew Infinity: What the film will teach you (and what it wont),
Mathematical Enchantments, July 17, 2016, https://mathenchant.wordpress.com/2016/07/17/
the-man-who-knew-infinity-what-the-film-will-teach-you-and-what-it-wont/.
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MEDIA HIGHLIGHTS
Warren Page, Section Editor
Tanya Leise
Philip Straffin
New Rochelle, NY
wxpny@aol.com
Amherst College
Amherst, MA
Longmont, CO
Media Highlights are short, approximately half-page, reviews intended to help CMJ readers monitor
a broad spectrum of publications, web materials, professional activities, and instructional resources.
Readers are encouraged to submit items that will be of interest to colleagues in the mathematical
community. Media Highlights should be sent to Warren Page at wxpny@aol.com.
Teaching the Next Generation of Statistics Students to Think With Data:

Special Issue on Statistics and the Undergraduate Curriculum, N. J. Horton and
J. S. Hardin, editors. The American Statistician 69:4 (December 2015) 259424,
http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/utas20/69/4.
The demand for statistics courses continues to grow, along with jobs requiring data
science skills: the ability to think with data. The statistics curriculum needs to
adapt to ensure students learn appropriate skills, to become general problem-solvers
able to deal nimbly with a range of challenges, and to know how to deal with enormous data sets and communicate the results. Nicholas Horton and Johanna Hardin
discuss the key issues the statistics education community faces and, in this special
issue, have put together a set of articles on ways to improve undergraduate statistics
courses. Topics addressed range from how to include real data analysis experiences in
early courses to how to create an effective capstone course, with articles addressing
both how to teach the conceptual material and the computational aspects and how to
assess learning outcomes of a statistics program. For example, in Mere Renovation
is Too Little Too Late: We Need to Rethink our Undergraduate Curriculum from the
Ground Up, George Cobb argues that the statistics curriculum needs a comprehensive
reform, rather than minor tweaks, and he lays out a set of principles for carrying this
out, prioritizing fundamental concepts and the entryways into research. In A Data
Science Course for Undergraduates: Thinking with Data, Ben Baumer describes how
to design a course that emphasizes modern, practical, and useful skills that cover the
full data analysis spectrum, from asking an interesting question to acquiring, managing, manipulating, processing, querying, analyzing, and visualizing data, as well
communicating findings in written, graphical, and oral forms. Byran Smucker and A.
John Bailer describe how to prepare students for statistics-related careers in Beyond
Normal: Preparing Undergraduates for the Work Force in a Statistical Consulting
Capstone. This issue includes other articles addressing a variety of issues and is well
worth perusing. TL
Filling a Gap in the History of : An Exciting Discovery, B. Wardhaugh. The Mathematical Intelligencer 38:1 (Spring 2016) 67, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/
s00283-015-9556-7.
In 1706, John Machin used the identity /4 = 4 arctan(1/5) arctan(1/239) to calculate to 100 decimal places. In the standard story of the quest to go further, the next
advances were made by Jurij Vega, who calculated 140 places in 1789 (hoping thereby
to be elected to the Petersburg Academy), and Leopold von Schulz Strasznicky, who
386
`
calculated 205 places in 1844. But Jean-Etienne
Montucla reported in his 18th-century
Histoire des mathematiques that one Baron Zach saw in the 1780s a manuscript in
Oxford containing a calculation of to 154 places. Benjamin Wardhaugh was able,
using the now-digitalized manuscripts catalogue of the Bodleian Library, to track down
this manuscript, which turned out to be a handwritten book containing, in addition to
the calculation of , several hundred pages of tables of logarithms and sines calculated
to 30 decimal places. In the unsigned manuscript, the unknown author calculated the
154 digits in 1721, using not an efficient formula like Machins, but the much cruder

1
1
1
1
= 6 arctan
+
+ .
= 12 1
3 3 5 32
7 33
3
This involved calculating 12 to 154 decimal places and then calculating and adding
an amazing 314 terms of the series. After having carefully checked the work twice, the
author wrote out the final clean copy in 1759, in which 152 places were correct. Wardhaugh comments, Its a strange story and perhaps a melancholy one. The thought of
a provincial schoolmastersaybeavering away at mathematical tables and calculations for half a lifetime and never seeing them printed is a sobering one, even if it was
done as self-improvement and not with the hope of publishing. There is one more
remarkable fact: This work was done in Philadelphia. Thus, for a period of 123 years,
the most accurate known evaluation of was done in the remote British colony of
Pennsylvania. PDS
Painting New Lines: Maximizing Color Difference in Metro Maps, S. F. Griffioen and A. V. Kiselev. The Mathematical Intelligencer 38:1 (Spring 2016) 2531,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00283-015-9597-y.
The Moscow metro has 14 different lines and on its stylized map each line is colored
a different color. In the near future, new lines are to be added. This article describes a
model to determine what color a new line should be in order to maximize its perceptual
difference from the colors already in use. In order to do this, we need to define a space
of colors and a metric on that space which correlates well with perceived color differ
ences. In 1931, the Commission Internationale de lEclairage,
based on measurements
on the vision of hundreds of subjects, recommended using a three-dimensional space
with coordinates L (lightness), a(red-green scale), and b (yellow-blue scale) with the
Euclidean metric d(C1 , C2 ) = (L 1 L 2 )2 + (a1 a2 )2 + (b1 b2 )2 . Within this
space, now known as CIELAB space, the set of colors that can be represented by a
given printing system is a compact set, called the gamut of the system. The authors
illustrate and use the gamut of Adobe 98 and model it as a polyhedron. Now the
problem becomes: Given a finite set of points in a polyhedron P, find the point whose
minimal distance from all those points is as large as possible. One computationally
efficient method for doing this is to construct the Voronoi polyhedral decomposition
of P corresponding to the given points and check its vertex points to find the one with
the largest minimal distance. The authors use a variation of this method to determine
that the next five new lines in the Moscow metro should be colored, in order, cyan,
bright green, blue, pale lavender, and rose pink. At the end of the article, they note
that the next step in modeling would be to take into account that not all lines intersect
and maximize the color differences between lines which do intersect. The article is
beautifully illustrated with maps of the Moscow metro and its planned extension, the
London metrowhich we are invited to analyzeand a stereographic image (bring
your eyes in close) of the Moscow metro colors in CIELAB space. PDS
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A Short Walk can be Beautiful, J. M. Borwein. Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

6:1 (January 2016) 86109, http://dx.doi.org/10.5642/jhummath.201601.
07.
This article illustrates mathematical aesthetics by applying Bessel functions to short
random walks in Rd . It allows the author to mirror his evolution from a student who
thought of these functions as obscure solutions to a class of ordinary differential equations to a researcher who finds them fascinating and uses them extensively in his work
in mathematical physics.
Jonathan Borwein (who died on August 2nd, 2016 at age 65) considers random
walks that start at the origin of Rd where each step is a unit vector with a uniform
random direction. One can prove that the probability density function of the distance
x from the origin to the end of a walk is given by equation (5) in the article,

2
(t x)+1 J (t x) jn (t)dt,
pn (; x) =
! 0
where n is the number of steps, j is the normalized Bessel function of the first kind,
J is the unnormalized version, and = d/2 1. Borwein suggests that a simply
stated result that requires a complex argument is a heuristic for beauty and gives as
an example Kluyvers theorem, which states that the probability of an n-step random
walk in R2 ending up with distance less than 1 from the origin is 1/(n + 1), where n
2. Although one may disagree with claims concerning mathematical aesthetics, his
examples are striking and involve interesting connections among analysis, probability,
and combinatorics. RB
Math with Bad Drawings, B. Orlin. https://mathwithbaddrawings.com.
The drawings of mathematics teacher Ben Orlin are charming and they illustrate with
humor his views on math, education, and life. His blog entry of 4 July 2016 (We
Hold These Mathematical Truths to Be Self-Evident) is typical: It includes math
humor (P(A and B) = P(A)P(B) to celebrate Independence Day) and social commentary (All humans are created equal, at least up to a constant, followed by one
stick figure saying to another, You say you value an employee like me as highly as
a CEO like you. So will we get equal raises? The second figure says, If you use
Big O notation, yes!). Any teacher can learn from Orlins insights, such as in What
Students See When They Look at Algebra with case studies showing what is on the
page, what students see, and what mathematicians see. Words alone cannot convey the
humor and wisdom; the drawings carry the day. But some entries have more words than
pictures, such as A Quadratic of Solace, (or, Maybe Math Class Has a Purpose, Question Mark?), which advocates for quadratics as the ideal playground for exploring
mathematical ideas not too complicated but sufficiently complicated to be interesting.
Usually there is a new post each week. RNG
Bubble Blowing by the Numbers, Pascal Panizza and Laurent Courbin. Physics
Today 69:7 (July 2016) 7879, http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.3246.
Although bubble blowing is an ubiquitous activity, surprisingly it has not been fully
studied in existing literature. The authors and their two Ph.D. students built a bubble machine to investigate bubble formation, which is governed by surface tension
and the force of blowing. Bernoullis principle describes the conversion of the kinetic
energy density of blowing, v 2 /2 where is the density of the blown gas and v is its
speed, to the potential energy density (Laplace pressure) of dimpling the fluid surface,
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4 where denotes the mean curvature

of the surface. The speed threshold for bubble formation is estimated to be vc = 8 / R0 where R0 is the radius of the nozzle
that blows gas. Real-life bubble blowing with a wand is more complicated. For one
thing, a person usually blows bubbles at a finite distance away from the film. By
considering the
profile of the turbulent jet, the authors predicted the threshold velocity
to be about vc 1 + /5R0 when is not too large; experimental results are consistent
with this prediction. The experiments can be performed in the classroom without the
need for sophisticated equipment. Students can use a stop watch to measure the rate at
which the volume of gas is emitted using a burette filled with water and an elementary
calculation can relate that rate of change to the average gas velocity. FW
A Characterization of Calculus I Final Exams in U.S. Colleges and Universities,
M. A. Tallman, M. P. Carlson, D. M. Bressoud, and M. Pearson. International Journal of Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education 2:1 (April 2016) 105133,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s40753-015-0023-9.
Was the calculus reform movement of the 1990s a failure? Judging by the kinds of
items on current Calculus I final exams versus those on final exams given in 198687,
the answer would probably be that nothing much has changed in the intervening 25
years. The authors examined and coded the 3,735 items on 150 Calculus I exams.
They found 85.21% of the items were solvable by simply retrieving rote knowledge from memory or recalling and applying a procedure. This study was part of the
larger MAA initiative to determine characteristics of successful programs in college
calculus. From a corpus of 253 Calculus I final exams, 150 were selected at random
for this study. The authors developed an Exam Characterization Framework (ECF)
to code the exam items. The ECF considers three distinct dimensions: item orientation, item representation, and item format. The item orientation dimension includes
seven categories: remember, recall and apply procedure, understand, apply understanding, analyze, evaluate, and create. The item representation dimension includes
applied/modeling, symbolic, tabular, graphical, definition/theorem, proof, example,
counterexample, and explanation. The third dimension includes multiple choice, short
answer, and broad open-ended. Since the ECF was one of the products of the study,
the authors suggest using it with preservice teaching programs and graduate teaching
assistant workshops as a tool to assist in constructing better assessments of students
understanding. A&JS
The Life and Work of John Wallis, S. H. Brown and L. A. Smith. Mathematical
Spectrum 48:3 (2015/2016) 105111.
This mostly biographical article sketches Walliss wide-ranging interests, from codebreaking and the design of ships hulls to music theory and logic. His many books
and treatises include De sectionibus conicis on geometry and Arithmetica infinitorum
on algebra. The latter, published in 1656 and read by Isaac Newton in 16641665,
represents, according to the authors, Walliss finest achievement and the foundation
for the future development of integral calculus. It employs an arithmetical approach
for finding the area under curves, such as the ratio of the area of the quadrant of a circle
to the square of its radius. Using a special case of the binomial theorem and clever
interpolation, Wallis found his famous infinite product formula 4 = 23 43 45 65 67 ,
the first formula for that involved only rational operations.
Wallis engaged in disputes with several famous mathematicians. One of these arose
from his submission of a solution in 1659 to Blaise Pascals prize problem on determining the area of any segment under a cycloid. Walliss solution had numerous mistakes
389
and he was embittered by Pascals demeaning comments on it. Many years later, in
1685, Wallis published a treatise on algebra that included, according to the authors,
a fairly biased review of the algebraic works of his contemporaries. While he praised
his fellow countrymens publications on algebra, he criticized the work done by great
mathematicians such as Rene Descartes and others from outside of England. For more
information on Walliss disputes see Jacqueline Stedalls article John Wallis and the
French: His Quarrels with Fermat, Pascal, Dulaurens, and Descartes, Historia Mathematica 39:3 (August 2012) 265279. In the 1690s, Wallis published his theological
thoughts on the doctrine of The Holy Trinity. These used a geometrical model of a
cube to relate its length, width, and height to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost! The
authors observe that Walliss material on the Trinity was very popular throughout the
various religious sects. PR
Deepwater Horizon: Locating Submerged Oil in Ocean Water Using the
k-means Clustering Technique, T. Dey, W. Hickey, B. Parakkal, and W. Woyczynski. Chance 29:2 (April 2016) 4652, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09332480.
2016.1181965.
In 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil well exploded and released about 5,000,000 barrels
of crude oil before it was capped. For comparison, the intentional Gulf War oil spill
in Kuwait is estimated to be slightly larger than this and the Exxon Valdez discharged
about a tenth as much in Prince William Sound, Alaska. In spite of the damage caused
in the Gulf of Mexico, the rate of oil drilling permits issued by the United States
today is about the same as it was right before 2010. Consequently, developing better
techniques to estimate the amount of oil in a body of water from samples taken is still
relevant and the authors describe a method using k-means, a data mining algorithm, to
do this.
The United States government has made available its measurements from the Gulf
of Mexico through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The authors used 16 weeks of temperature, depth (1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 meters), and conductivity (from which salinity can be estimated) data. Estimates of fluid density can
be made from these parameters, leading to an estimate of the proportion of oil in each
sample. The k-means algorithm is a clustering technique that finds mean vectors for
each cluster that minimize the sum of squared distances between these and the data
vectors of each cluster. The authors found four clusters defined by ranges of mean
density in kg/m3 ; the one with an upper bound of 1,020 kg/m3 is strongly correlated
with regions of high levels of oil. This makes sense because ocean water has a density
around 1,025 kg/m3 , while the oil at that location is only 840 kg/m3 , so contamination results in lower mean density. Finally, the authors method is cheap because it is
collected by unmanned, underwater drones instead of expensive-to-run hydrographic
survey ships, which is yet another example in statistics of exchanging some accuracy
in order to obtain lower costs. RB
Higher-Order Organization of Complex Networks, A. Benson, D. Gleich, and
J. Leskovec. Science 353:6295 (8 July 2016) 163166, http://dx.doi.org/10.
1126/science.aad9029.
Network science has rapidly become one of the fundamental interdisciplinary tools
for understanding the world, with applications in a variety of areas including gene
regulation networks, transportation systems, and neural structures. Much of network
analysis is based on examining local properties of nodes, which are then averaged in
some way over the larger network. Global analysis of a network is often built on spectral analysis of some appropriate matrix, such as the adjacency matrix, representing the
390
network. What has been lacking, until now, are computationally tractable methods for
global analysis of large networks to identify how recurring subgraphs drive network
structure. The authors accomplish this with a clever generalization of the conductance
metric from spectral graph theory.
For a particular subgraph M called a motif, the motif conductance
M (S) =
cut M (S, S)
min{vol M (S), vol M ( S)}
is a measure of how much of a given network contains instances of M. Here cut M (S, S)
refers to the number of instances of the motif M that are cut by the partitioning and
vol M (S) is the number of nodes in S that are found in instances of M. Essentially, one
tests all partitions of the graph into a set S and its complement S until a minimum
of M (S) is found. If one then forms a motif adjacency matrix W M by counting the
number of times two nodes co-occur in the motif, then an eigenvector of the Laplacian
of W M provides an ordering of the nodes of the network. Looking at the nested sets
of nodes of increasing size, Sr = {1 , 2 , . . . , r }, one can then identify the r value
for which the motif conductance is minimal. That set provides, as the authors prove
in the supplemental material online, a near-optimal higher order cluster. Applying this
to the c. elegans neuronal network, they identify a 20-node higher-order cluster of a
four-node bi-fan motif (where nodes 1 and 2 each point to nodes 3 and 4, expressing
two neurons passing information separately to the next layer of neurons) that governs
communication. The supplementary material provides additional proofs and details
on how this analysis generalizes to directed, undirected, weighted, and signed networks, and an analysis of the computational efficiency of the technique, which scales
as
(edges1.2 ) for triangular motifs in the worst case scenario. KHG
Novel Fibonacci and Non-Fibonacci Structure in the Sunflower: Results of a
Citizen Science Experiment, J. Swinton, E. Ochu, and The MSI Turings Sunflower
Consortium. Royal Society Open Science 3 (2016) 3: 160091, 17 pp., http://dx.
doi.org/10.1098/rsos.160091.
The spiral arrangement of seeds in sunflower heads has been a favorite example of
Fibonacci numbers occurring in nature, with some anecdotal evidence and small studies supporting the notion. But how consistently does that really occur? In this citizen
science experiment, volunteers grew sunflowers, took photos of the flower heads, then
marked the spirals and submitted them, yielding data on 657 sunflower heads which
were independently reviewed to ensure reliable results. Typically, both clockwise and
counterclockwise spirals, called parastichies, can be discerned, and the numbers in
each direction form a parastichy pair. These parastichy pairs have often been observed
to be adjacent Fibonacci numbers like (34, 21), or adjacent double Fibonacci numbers
like (68, 42). Among the parastichy pairs observed here, 80% had Fibonacci structure
and a further 10% were one-off from Fibonacci (with one less than Fibonacci much
more frequent than one more). The authors systematically examine the exceptions to
Fibonacci-like organization and categorize the deviations that can occur. Across most
of the samples, one spiral direction tends to be more prominent than the other direction, and in a few of the non-Fibonacci examples, only one spiral direction could be
discerned. In some other problematic samples, regions of disorder occurred, preventing reliable counting. There were also instances of multiple spiral patterns occurring
rather than only two clear ones. This large data set could facilitate the testing of different models of how such parastichy pairs may arise, such as Turings geometrical
phyllotaxis model, which could make a great undergraduate research project. TL
391
Estimating an NBA Players Impact on His Teams Chances of Winning,

S. K. Deshpande and S. T. Jensen. Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports 12:2
(June 2016) 5172, http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/jqas-2015-0027.
The article applies the concept of win probability to professional basketball to compute ratings of NBA players. The title carefully states what is being done, as this is
not another best-player-of-all-time rating scheme. The starting place is an approximation of win probabilities from nine years of NBA data; in particular, the probability
that a team leads by p points with m minutes remaining is estimated. Then, play-byplay data from the 201314 season is compiled for each shift in the game. Here, a
shift is the period of time (however long) between substitutions. During a shift, the
same ten players are on the court. Instead of looking at the net score (plus-minus), the
authors model the change in win probability during each shift as a linear combination
of team quality, home court, and ratings of each of the individual players on the court.
A players impact score is then defined as the ratio of the mean and standard deviations of the players ratings. This score isolates a players contributions to the team
and seems to identify strong defensive players as well as the usual offensive stars. The
article is notable for its attention to the details of working with data sets with small
sample sizes. Neither the time-and-score combinations for win probabilities nor tenplayer combinations for shifts occur frequently and require adjustments to standard
techniques. Numerous tables of ratings and comparisons to other rating systems are
provided. RM
How Do We Draw an Ellipse?, A. Shell-Gellasch. Math Horizons 23:4 (April 2016)
2325, http://dx.doi.org/10.4169/mathhorizons.23.4.23.
The answer to the question is obvious, right? Use a string, two pins, pencil, and paper.
Well, yes and no. This method, called the physical method by the author, works but
is too crude for technical drawing. A second, more accurate method, often called
the parallelogram method, is based on plotting many points, not from the equation
of an ellipse but from intersections of pairs of lines drawn from points on adjacent
sides of a given parallelogram. Connecting the resulting points of intersection by
hand yields an ellipse inscribed in the parallelogram, but this involves many points
and is time consuming. The last method in the article, called the mechanical method,
involves the use of mechanical devices called ellipsographs that were used by professionals in the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. These are based on a simple device that was known to the Greeks as a trammel of Archimedes. The article
gives a nice, one-paragraph explanation of why the trammel works, using only highschool analytic geometry. The Smithsonians National Museum of American History in Washington, where the author volunteers, has a set of eight ellipsographs.
Color photos of four are shown in the article, two of which are the Stanley Ellipsograph of 1888 and an Omicron Ellipsograph from the 1950s. All of the ellipsographs can be viewed at the Smithsonian website http://americanhistory.si.
edu/collections/object-groups/ellipsographs. PR
Innocent Until Proven Guilty, C. Case and D. Whitaker. Mathematics Teacher 109:9
(May 2016) 686692.
Case and Whitaker provide a clear and easily implemented two-class activity that uses
hands-on exploration and computer simulation to build students intuitions about statistical power and the nature of errors in hypothesis testing. Groups of students collect
evidence about an accused cheater by using a spinner that is assigned to them. The
catch is that the student in the role of the judge cannot see the actual spinner, only the
392
estimates produced by the other group members regarding the estimated fairness of the
spinner in relation to the number of spins completed. Comparisons among groups naturally give rise to the ideas behind type I errors (wrongly convicting a noncheater), type
II errors (letting the suspect go when cheating has occurred), and power, which teachers can introduce as the discussion evolves. Groups produce graphs that demonstrate
the variability of the estimate of the spinners fairness as a function of the number
of spins and guided questions are provided to enhance discussion. The second class
period can be devoted to a simulation activity that allows the students to collect more
data over a wider range of conditions. Using TinkerPlots, the groups explore how the
fairness of the spinner, the number of spins, and the significance level required to convict all influence the rates and types of errors produced. Guided questions and selected
by-hand calculations help students sort through the data and draw conclusions about
the ways in which sample size and effect size increase the power of a test. While
designed for a high school Advanced Placement statistics course and the Common
Core, this pair of activities meets the expectations laid out in the Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education College Report for helping students at all
levels develop experience with these concepts. These activities would also be useful in
many college level introductory statistics or liberal arts mathematics courses. KHG
AMS President Robert Bryant: His Early Life and His Views on Mathematics,
A. Jackson. Notices of the AMS 63:6 (June/July 2016) 614620, http://dx.doi.
org/10.1090/noti1393.
Robert Bryant grew up in a small farming community in North Carolina. He said he
hated arithmetic as a kid, but after he found his uncles college calculus textbook
he was fascinated by the pictures and word problems. He taught himself college algebra by the eighth grade and was inspired by a professor to major in mathematics in
his senior year. He attended North Carolina State University and originally planned
to go to Harvard for graduate study. He was not accepted and he had not applied to
other schools because he did not want to spend money on application fees. Because
of these hardships, Bryant supports the AMSs involvement in the Math Alliance to
support underserved students. Bryant is most fond of his proof of the existence of Riemannian manifolds with special holonomy. He was surprised by physicists interest
in his work, which turned out to be connected to supersymmetry, string theory, and
M-theory. When asked about how his personal life has interacted with professional
life, Bryant said that as a gay man, he faced some challenges. To bring equality, he
was involved in persuading Duke University to recognize same-sex domestic partners
(the first university in the South to do so). He is proud of the mathematics community for moving the 1995 Joint Mathematics Meetings (JMM) from Denver to San
Francisco after Colorado passed a discriminatory amendment. Bryant helped set up
the first reception for LGBT mathematicians at the 1995 JMM and 21 years later the
tradition of this reception still continues. FW
Media Correspondents
RB Roger Bilisoly; KHG Kris H. Green; RNG Raymond N. Greenwell; TL Tanya
Leise; RM Roland Minton; PR Peter Ross; A&JS Annie & John Selden; PDS Philip
D. Straffin; FW Frank Wang.
393

George Polya
Awards for 2016
The George Polya Awards, named for the distinguished Stanford University mathematician and author, best known for his book How to Solve It, recognizes the authors
of exceptional pieces from The College Mathematics Journal. For the year 2016, there
are two awards. The following citations were written by the Committee on George
Polya Awards, chaired by Natacha C. Fontes-Merz.
G. Hamilton, K. S. Kedlaya, H. Picciotto, Square-sum pair partitions, The College
Mathematics Journal 46:4 (2015) 264269.
Mathematicians love a good puzzle. But what does good mean? While answers may
vary, the article Square-Sum Pair Partitions delivers a puzzle to warm many of our
hearts. The basic version is this: Arrange a given set of whole numbers into pairs so
that the sum of the numbers in each pair is a perfect square. For example, the whole
numbers from 1 to 8 can be paired into {1, 8}, {2, 7}, {3, 6}, and {4, 5}. Sets of the form
{1, 2, 3, . . . , 2n} follow, prompting readers to question when a solution exists, when a
solution is unique, and how many solutions are possible in the case of non-uniqueness.
Generalizations abound: sets need not start at one, and need not increase by one, with
arithmetic progressions { p, p + d, p + 2d, . . . , p + (n 1)d} suggested as another
type of set to consider. Alternate constraints, such as summing to powers of 2, and
many other extensions, turn the initial puzzle into a wealth of ideas.
Returning to the idea of a good puzzle, most notably, the puzzle in this article is
easy to state; elementary grade students can begin is tackle it. With regard to educational goals, a priority for many puzzle seekers, the article speaks directly to mathematics teachers, suggesting ways to implement these challenges in class and providing
ample resources for teachers and puzzle hobbyists. Another good puzzle quality is a
compelling visual representation and the puzzles in this article have a beautiful rainbow pairing shown in several colorful illustrations. It is also true that a good puzzle
often has layers, with each solution prompting further questions and extensions, something demonstrated repeatedly in this article. The extensions and suggestions about
proving results provide solid material for the college level and beyond. Finally, and
of particular importance for the George Polya Award, the article is written expertly,
making it easy and fun for readers to enjoy the many good puzzles within.
3 4
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26
Figure 1. A partial square-sum pair partition from the article. Can you complete it?
394
H. Boualem, R. Brouzet, To be (a circle) or not to be? The College Mathematics

Journal 46:3 (2015) 197206.
We teach students early on that
x 2 + y2 = 1
(1)
represents a circle. But the arc of the curve

1
x2 + y2 = 1
(2)
in the unit square [0, 1] [0, 1] looks awfully circular itself. Thanks to the symmetry
of a circle and the reciprocal nature of these equations, we might want to take a close
look before deciding that (2) yields some other kind of curve.
Starting from this straightforward premise, Boualem and Brouzet take us on a tour
of important techniques from algebra, geometry, and calculus, each step illustrated by
a new proof that (2) is not, in fact, an arc of a circle. The chain of fourteen proofs,
many framed as exercises, culminates in an application of the formula for curvature.
But the fact that (1) and (2) share a structural bond prompts the authors to linger
on the topic. Surely, the two curves, though not identical, are members of a family.
Indeed they are: after proving that (2) is an arc of a parabola, the authors demonstrate
that these two curves are the only conics (aside from a degenerate case) that satisfy
x r + y r = 1 for r > 0 in the region [0, 1] [0, 1]. This discussion not only revisits
curvature but also relies on series expansions. The authors conclude their tour with a
glimpse at Lames curves, a larger family that contain both (1) and (2).
If we compare the article to a mountain trail, and think of the fourteen proofs as base
camps, then the article is something that a teacher can give to a student who is equipped
with the tools of elementary calculus, and the student can begin to climb. Certain
passes may require equipment that the student can acquire on the fly, and some of the
base camps may turn out to be (for now) inaccessible. At all times, however, a view
of the destination is visible from the trail, drawing the student onwards. This article
inspires persistence and rewards the hard work that we have all put into understanding
what we must in order to make this journey, and thus it shares much with Polya award
winners of the past.
3
2
1
Figure 2. Curves (1) and (2) plotted together beyond [0, 1] [0, 1].
395
NOTES ON VOLUME 46
In these pages, we share corrections and notes for articles published in volume 46
(2015) of The College Mathematics Journal. Unfortunately, these do not address all
of the published mistakes, only the ones we are aware of that are more problematic
than typographic or similar errors. Readers are encouraged to write cmj@maa.org with
notes on the current volume.
Proof without words: The maximum sum of inradii, David Richeson, The College
Mathematics Journal 46 (2015) 23, http://dx.doi.org/10.4169/college.
math.j.46.1.23.
This page generated an interesting discussion about the intent and requirements for
the popular Proofs Without Words series. Based on comments by a referee, the claim
preceding the final figure reads The triangulation shown below provides a way to
see this convergence rather than claiming a proof, but Michael Maltenfort expected
more: While admitting that the format prevents including all details, he explains, As
a reader, I want to be able to come away from a PWW and have the ability to write up
a complete proof. The author agrees that There are definitely nontrivial details to be
addressed. We maintain that the triangulation shown provides valuable insight as to
why the sum in question equals the diameter. Perhaps this raises the need for a revised
title that includes a broader category of mathematically elucidating figures.
Elvis lives: Mathematical surprises inspired by Elvis, the Welsh corgi, Steve J. Bacinski, Mark J. Panaggio, Timothy J. Pennings, The College Mathematics Journal 46
(2015) 8291, http://dx.doi.org/10.4169/college.math.j.46.2.82.
Due to a production error, an uncorrected formula was published on page 87. It
should be as follows.
d L
=
d x y
y
1 + (y )2
3
v(x, y)
y (vx (x, y) + y v y (x, y))

.
1 + (y )2 v(x, y)2
The fastest path between two points, with a symmetric obstacle, Kathleen Bell, Shania
Polson, Tom Richmond, The College Mathematics Journal 46 (2015) 9297, http://
dx.doi.org/10.4169/college.math.j.46.2.92.
Michael Maltenfort points out that in the section the other diagonal, the authors
lose track of their convention that the axes are not part of the pool and should consider
the purely on-land path of running to the edge of the pool and then up to the corner. The
authors agree that their application of Snells law does not address this path, which
will be optimal if running is much faster than swimming. They go on to point out
that much faster would be difficult to quantify, depending on a quartic with three
parameters.
On combining and convolving fractals, Nicholas Cotton, Cam McLeman, Daniel
Pinchock, The College Mathematics Journal 46 (2015) 99108, http://dx.doi.
org/10.4169/college.math.j.46.2.99.
The authors are careful to explain that their convolution of fractals is commutative, but Michael Maltenfort points out that they fail to account for this in two places.
In Theorem 6, assuming dF dG does lose generality; a stronger statement, with
essentially the same proof, would say that if dF = dG , then the dimension of F G is
396
strictly between dF and dG . Also, the order of the two fractals on the left-hand side
of the graphic equation in Figure 10 should be reversed to give the convolved fractal
shown on the right-hand side.
Sequences of power lines, Ricardo Alfaro, The College Mathematics Journal 46 (2015)
113120, http://dx.doi.org/10.4169/college.math.j.46.2.113.
Michael Maltenfort reported some strict inequalities that should allow for equality
and nonstandard uses of notation along with a more serious issue:
In the paragraph beginning In the second case, the author is considering the
case in which limn (bn /an ) = L 1. The author claims that there exists
n 0 such that for all n > n 0 we have bn > an . An elementary calculus problem we
might give our students is to invent examples in which bn < an for all n and yet
limn (bn /an ) = 1. Happily, it turns out that this error
can berepaired. The
conclusion that such an n 0 exists is unnecessary because nn bn /an < nn /an
follows from an and bn being positive.
Healso pointed out that the graphs shown in Figure 5 should all cross the x-axis at
(1 + 5)/2. The author acknowledges submitting the wrong graphics file and appreciates the correction to Theorem 1 which, as noted, does not change the conclusion.
Groupoid cardinality and Egyptian fractions, Julia E. Bergner, Christopher D. Walker,
The College Mathematics Journal 46 (2015) 122129, http://dx.doi.org/10.
4169/college.math.j.46.2.122.
Multiple readers were confused by the authors visual representation of groupoids.
They explain, The dot and arrow diagrams we drew were meant to be schematic,
not rigorous descriptions of groupoids. While it was admittedly ambiguous how many
arrows were meant by the double arrow from the one dot to itself, the picture was
supposed to show an identification of the row of dots by folding itthe middle dot
gets identified with itself and so has a (single) nonidentity arrow which is its own
inverse.
There were also responses that the greedy algorithm cannot be applied to find Egyptian fraction decompositions for m/n for integers m > n. This is true, and alternative
methods are available, but as the authors stated, they were only considering the case
m < n.
On the shrinking volume of the hypersphere, Michael H. Peters, The College Mathematics Journal 46 (2015) 178180, http://dx.doi.org/10.4169/college.
math.j.46.3.178.
Lawrence Glasser mentioned to the author a related problem he posed in the
Monthly in 1961: Show that the volume of any sphere in Hilbert space is zero. A solution by D. J. Newman and comments by J. V. Ryff appeared in Amer. Math. Monthly
69 (1962) 240241 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2311073.
Square-sum pair partitions, Gordon Hamilton, Kiran S. Kedlaya, Henri Picciotto, The
College Mathematics Journal 46 (2015) 264269, http://dx.doi.org/10.4169/
college.math.j.46.4.264.
After publication, the authors found another relevant reference which includes
determining the n for which {1, 2, . . . , 2n} admits a partition into square-sum pairs:
J. Schwartzman, H. S. Shultz, Square-dance numbers, Math. Teacher 85 (1989)
380382.
397
REFEREES IN 2016
Listed here are the mathematicians who, in addition to members of the Editorial Board,
reviewed articles for CMJ over the past year (May 2015 to August 2016). The College
Mathematics Journal is only produced thanks to the labor of these volunteers.
Steve Abbott, Middlebury College

James Angelos, Central Michigan
University
Jathan Austin, Salisbury University
Michael Bardzell, Salisbury University
Mattias Beck, San Francisco State
University
Robert Bix, University of Michigan,
Flint
Mark Bollman, Albion College
John Bonomo, Westminster College
David Boyles, University of Wisconsin,
Platteville
Ezra Brown, Virginia Polytechnic Institute
and State University
Kevin Charlwood, Washburn University
Hongwei Chen, Christopher Newport
University
Eddie Cheng, Oakland University
Aaron Cinzori, Hope College
Daniel Coffield, University of Michigan,
Flint
Susan Colley, Oberlin College
Brian Conrey, American Institute of
Mathematics
Daniel Curtin, Northern Kentucky
University
Tushar Das, University of Wisconsin, La
Crosse
Amy DeCelles, University of St. Thomas
Jeff Denny, Mercer University
Allan Donsig, University of Nebraska,
Lincoln
Suzanne Doree, Augsburg College
Eric Egge, Carleton College
Eleanor
Farrington,
Massachusetts
Maritime Academy
David Finn, Rose-Hulman Institute of
Technology
Natacha
Fontes-Merz,
Westminster
College
Ben Ford, Sonoma State University
Ovidiu Furdui, Technical University of

Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Leszek Gawarecki, Kettering University
Russell Gordon, Whitman College
William Green, Rose-Hulman Institute of
Technology
Meredith Greer, Bates College
Charles Groetsch, The Citadel, The
Military College of South Carolina
Deanna Haunsperger, Carleton College
Jessen Havill, Denison University
Firas Hindeleh, Grand Valley State
University
Jonathan Hodge, Grand Valley State
University
Judy Holdener, Kenyon College
Tim Huber, University of Texas, Rio
Grande Valley
Brian Jones, Kenyon College
James Killiher, University of California,
Riverside
Gary Kennedy, Ohio State University
James King, University of Washington
Reginald Koo, University of South
Carolina, Aiken
Matt Kretchmar, Denison University
Joan Krone, Dennison University
Glenn Ledder, University of Nebraska,
Lincoln
Oscar Levin, University of Northern
Colorado
Scott Linder, Ohio Wesleyan University
Cameron McLeman, University of
Michigan, Flint
Ioana Mihaila, California Polytechnic
State University, Pomona
David Miller, West Virginia University
Bob Milnikel, Kenyon College
Kent Morrison, California Polytechnic
State Univeristy, San Luis Obispo
Christina Mouser, William Paterson
University
398
David Murphy, Hillsdale College

Cora Neal, University of Alaska,
Anchorage
Roger Nelsen, Lewis & Clark College
Dawn Nelson, Saint Peters University
Kevin OBryant, College of Staten Island
Jeff Ovall, Portland State University
Timothy Pennings, Davenport University
Pamela Pierce, College of Wooster
Les Pook, University College London
Aaron Robertson, Colgate University
Robert Root, Lafayette College
Gabriel Rosenerg, Bard High School
Early College
Kimberly Roth, Juniata College
Sheldon
Rothman,
Long
Island
University
Dana Rowland, Merrimack College
James Sandefur, Georgetown University
Byron Schmuland, University of Alberta

Andrew Simoson, King University
Katherine Socha, The Park School at
Baltimore
Joe Stickles, Milikin University
Santiago Tavares, University of Florida
Robert Vallin, Lamar University
Daniel Velleman, Amherst College
Li-An Wang, Sam Houston State
University
John Watkins, Colorado College
Chad Westphal, Wabash College
Gordon Williams, University of Alaska
Keith
Willoughby,
University
of
Saskatchewan
Keith Wojciechowski, University of
Wisonsin, Stout
Mark Woodard, Furman University
Jennifer Zhao, University of Michigan
399
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MATHEMATICAL ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
322364
ARTICLES
322
The Sine of a Single Degree by Travis Kowalski
333
Form by Sarah Blake
334
When You Wander off on a Tangent, Where Do You End Up?

by Melissa Mark and Michael Schramm
340
Do the Twist! (on Polygon-Base Boxes) by sarah-marie

belcastro and Tamara Veenstra
346
Proof Without Words: The Lateral Surface Area of a Conical

Frustum by Miyeon Kwon
347
Winning a Pool Is Harder Than You Thought by John P.

Bonomo
355
Proof Without Words: A Right Triangle Identity by Roger B.

Nelsen
356
A New and Rather Long Proof of the Pythagorean Theorem by

Way of a Proposition on Isosceles Triangles by Kaushik Basu
361
Leonardo da Vincis Proof of the Pythagorean Theorem by

Franz Lemmermeyer
365368
CLASSROOM CAPSULES
365
Trigonometric Derivatives Made Easy by Piotr Josevich
367
Algebraic Characterization of Two Independent Events

by Armen Bagdasaryan and Josep Batle
369374
PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS
375380
BOOK REVIEW
375
381385
381
386393
394
My Search for Ramanujan: How I Learned to Count by

KenOno and Amir D. Aczel
Reviewed by Brian Hopkins
FILM REVIEW
The Man Who Knew Infinity, directed by Matthew Brown
Reviewed by Jennifer Wilson
MEDIA HIGHLIGHTS
GEORGE PLYA AWARDS FOR 2016
396-397
NOTES ON VOLUME 46
398-399
REFEREES IN 2016

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Vol. 47, No.

Cyanea quercifolia by Thomas Hammer

An Official Publication of the Mathematical Association of America

The COLLEGE MATHEMATICS JOURNAL (ISSN 0746-8342) is

The MAA Customer Service Center

ABOUT THE COVER

Vol. 47, No. 5, November 2016

The Sine of a Single Degree

Travis Kowalski (travis.kowalski@sdsmt.edu) is a

The geometry of sine one degree

THE MATHEMATICAL ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA

sin 30 = 1/2 and sin 45 = 2/2 follow immediately.

Figure 1. The golden triangle subdivided.

exact values of the trigonometric functions at and , then it is possible to determine

Figure 2. Verifying the angle-subtraction formulas.

THE MATHEMATICAL ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA

The algebra of sine one degree

Figure 3. Solutions to the sin 1 cubic equation.

VOL. 47, NO. 5, NOVEMBER 2016 THE COLLEGE MATHEMATICS JOURNAL

is one of the great triumphs of algebra. Discovered first by Italian mathematician

which can be rewritten as

THE MATHEMATICAL ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA

and the involvement of the imaginary number becomes jarringly apparent.

The complex arithmetic of sine one degree

2, 3 + 4, 1 = 6, 4.

2 cos 150 + i 2 sin 150 = 3 + i

THE MATHEMATICAL ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA

( sin 3 + i cos 3 )1/3 (sin 3 + i cos 3 )1/3

so that x (z 1/3 w1/3 )/2. By the co-function property, z = cos 87 + i sin 87

The relationship is shown in Figure 4 left, with z appearing in red/bold. A similar

cos 149 + i sin 149

cos 151 + isin151

cos 269 + i sin 269

Figure 4. The cube roots of z and w.

Figure 5. Rotating the erroneous solution to get sin 1 .

THE MATHEMATICAL ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA

THE MATHEMATICAL ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA

VOL. 47, NO. 5, NOVEMBER 2016 THE COLLEGE MATHEMATICS JOURNAL

When You Wander off on a Tangent, Where

Melissa Mark (markmg@lemoyne.edu) received her

The region below a convex function

THE MATHEMATICAL ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA

Figure 1. Frames from f (x) = x 2 .

Figure 2. Frames from f (x) =

VOL. 47, NO. 5, NOVEMBER 2016 THE COLLEGE MATHEMATICS JOURNAL

THE MATHEMATICAL ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA

Figure 3. A case described in the proof of Theorem 1.

The excluded region

Figure 4. Frames from f (x) = ex sin(x).

VOL. 47, NO. 5, NOVEMBER 2016 THE COLLEGE MATHEMATICS JOURNAL

Figure 5. The situation described in the proof of Theorem 2.

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Figure 6. The situation described in the proof of Theorem 3.

VOL. 47, NO. 5, NOVEMBER 2016 THE COLLEGE MATHEMATICS JOURNAL

Do the Twist! (on Polygon-Base Boxes)

sarah-marie belcastro (smbelcas@toroidalsnark.net) received her Ph.D. in 1997

There is plenty of interesting mathematics connected to folding polygon-base twist

THE MATHEMATICAL ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA

Figure 1. Polygon-base twist boxes.

Pedagogy and support thereof. The amount of guidance needed by students

Figure 2. Crease patterns for 3-sided and 4-sided boxes.

THE MATHEMATICAL ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA

Figure 3. A messy-bottomed box and a clean-bottomed box.

2, 3 + 4, 1 = 6, 4.