Posted on 04/16/2015 9:29:47 AM PDT by QT3.14
Evidently you must not have taught the right math courses at your school.
Back in the day, we has a whole year of number-free mathematics in high school called “plane geometry” in which we did proofs from Euclid’s postulates and compass-and-straight-edge constructions. It was actually much more like what mathematicians actually do than the dry rote derivation of simultaneous solutions to systems of linear equations, finding roots of polynomials, or implementing the recursive algorithm that finds formulas of derivatives for functions expressed in terms of arithmetic operations and composition of elementary functions.
The fact that according to you mathematicians don’t do mathematics, suggests your notion of what mathematics is needs a bit of brushing up.
I majored in math at the graduate level and I think I am qualified to make such a statement.
You need to apologize to RF for being a jerk.
Let's see if you as good at gentlemanly behavior as you are at math.
BTW, I got the answer to this problem in about an hour of noodling. Look upthread.
A true leader of men (and women) always knows how to cut to the heart of the matter.
February 32nd.
I really suck at math.
“Once Bernard knows that July or August are the only possibilities, then any of 15, 16, or 17 would imply an exact date. So how can Albert’s knowledge advance from there, I am unsure. “
I came up with July 16.
After May and June were eliminated by A being 100% sure that B (who knows the number) won’t be able to figure out the month, then B from that clue and the 5 remaining dates suddenly knows.
For him to know with the available information, it cannot be 14 since there are two of them, so at this point it has to be 15,16 or 17.
Then for A, who knows the month but not the day, to suddenly declare that he knows too, means that it has to be July 16, since if he had august there would still two possible days and he wouldn’t be able to know which one.
What exactly do you think math is? Calculation? How did you get through graduate courses in mathematics without being disabused of that notion?
Evidently in Singapore people still remember what mathematics actually is so that they give little miniature exercises in the construction of proofs on their math exams.
I, too majored in mathematics at a graduate level, clear through a Ph.D., am a working mathematician, and took multiple semesters of *logic* in graduate school — good stuff like intuitionistic logic (including sheaf semantics), lambda calculus, and Martin-Lof type-theory.
That so many people (from among FReepers, a generally well-read and sophisticated bunch) want to claim that the problem had “no math involved”, including people who taught mathematics in the K-12 schools and took graduate courses in math, suggests that the rot in American mathematics education those of us teaching at universities have long been aware of is deeper, older, and more pervasive than we had thought.
You're putting words in my mouth.
I majored in mathematical modeling (econometrics) and spent my career on Wall St. I am one of those who believe just about everything can be expressed mathematically.
What I was objecting to was the manner in which you were scolding a non-math poster like a cranky professor who insults students in class.
I probably shouldn't have said a word and apologize for butting in.
After cypherin’ all the naughts I come up with July 14.
Use the same technique of date elimination on the remaining dates after the first round removes all dates in May and June.
Well, I am a cranky professor, and if you did your graduate work in modelling, then you are forgiven for having missed the fact that most of what mathematicians do is prove things. (OTOH, I am worried that high school math no longer seems to contain a sufficient dose of proofs in the geometry course, so that a high school math teacher makes the claim that a little exercise in proof is “not math”.)
LOL. Then you are forgiven.
I dearly love math but realize that some people are so intimidated by it that they actually freeze up when facing simple puzzles. Some of the folks on this thread seem to suffer that malady.
The correct line of reasoning.
At last! I would have pondered this silly question for hours ...
Indeed, an excellent syllogistic approach, too!
It was the wrong answer, you know. I missed that there was only one 18 date as well.
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