Problem Solving Group

Our third week this summer. We had a great meeting in which for some reason we all stopped being shy and wrote things down on the board. I think the problems this week were especially well suited for problem solving. We talked about a coin game in which two players pick sequences of head or tails and see which comes up first. Below is a write up of some of the things we did and an article that talks about the general results.

Penney Ante – PSG 6-16-11

Penney Ante

We also discussed a topology problem about hanging up a picture frame on two nails such that the picture stays up if both nails are in but if you take otu either one of them the picture falls. I do not have a write up for that at the moment but may in the future. Anyone else is encouraged to write it up if they want to.

It was a long meeting so I must be forgetting something so please add on!

Lastly some pictures.

We mainly talked about the lottery problem today and anything else is slipping my mind. Below is a solution to the problem with a brief discussion of generalization but nothing extensive. Does anyone have any thoughts on generalizations?

PSG 6-9-11