Q&A: Why is 0! = 1?
David R. of Palo Alto writes: Have you ever discussed factorials on your podcast? I don’t recall, but a friend and I are puzzled and so of course we turn to you: Why is “zero factorial” 1? Was it...
View ArticleQ&A: The Race
We never did resolve the question of which grows faster: In this corner we have Sequence 1 n^^n 1, 2^2, 3^3^3, 4^4^4^4, and so on. And over here we have Sequence 2, defined recursively by The first...
View ArticleQ&A: Numerous Numbers
Steve D. wrote us to say: I was listening to another podcast and they misread the copy and ended up saying “What is the most numerous number?”. Well, what IS the most numerous number? This is really a...
View ArticleQ & A: A little puzzle
I had a dream last night involving — (?) well I am not really sure, except that it left me wondering if there is a simple proof (if indeed it is true) that there must be a common factor of m choose i =...
View ArticleQ&A: Deal or No Deal
We’ve never discussed the famous “Monty Hall Problem” here (though we did talk about it on the radio before we started podcasting). We recently got an interesting letter that highlights the difference...
View ArticleQ & A: When Two Spheres Touch…
Chris S. writes: I was wondering what is the theoretical ‘area’ of contact between two spheres in contact with each other. I was unfortunately not able to locate much (if any) information on this....
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A question for our listeners
We usually pose puzzles, which implies we know the answer ahead of time. But today I’m stumped, and have a real question I hope someone out there can answer. It’s really quite amusing to repeatedly...
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