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.. tx for the invite, quark. i look forward, to: your posts and threads :-) ~~ amenhotepi

I was thinking that this group would be a opportune place to have this sort of forum, since the group itself is named after a book that mediates science in a popular manor. I for one would like to recommend a book called Fermat's Last Theorem by Simon Singh. A book I first read while in high school, it gives a fascinating recount of the history of the world's most famous math-problem. But it goes beyond this and stretches it's history back to the old Greeks, such as Pythagoras and Euclid and other important thinkers of the Hellinistic period. It also provides an insight into the (often troubled) men and women that have had an impact on the problem, either by attempting to solve it or made contributions that eventually were employed in the solution. A tale of suicide, murder and great mathematicians crumbling under the weight of what made them great - their genius - makes it a page-turner without comparison - the first time I read it, I did so in one day!

I'll post more fun math questions later, here is a question I posed to my Pre-Calculus students last quarter for fun. The average thinkness of a sheet of paper is about 0.1 mm (millimeters)The average distance from the surface of the Earth to the Moon is about 500,000 km. Suppose you have an infinitly long piece of paper with the thickness stated above, and that you can fold the paper over as many times as you like. The paper, if not folded, has thickness 0.1 mm. If you fold it in half, the thickness of the folded paper is twice this (0.2 mm). If you fold, the folded paper on itself, the doubly folded paper has thickness 0.4mm. Continuing on, we have 0.8, then 1.6 mm and so forth. 1) Assuming all of this is true, how many times would you have to fold this paper on itself such that if you were to lay the folded paper stack down on the ground, then it's thickness is guaranteed to reach the surface of the moon? 2) How many times would you have fold the paper stack to envelope the moon?

hey have you guys seen this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1dgrvlWML4

Manny Mandelbrot was upset because the other fractals wouldn't play with him... They said he was too self-similar. He decided to play hide and seek with Bob the electron... He couldn't ever find Bob because Bob always told Manny his exact velocity. Very bad jokes, but funny... and yes, i know that most fractals are more self-similar than the mandelbrot set... it just makes a good joke

I wonder if there are any group members who can calendar calculate, crunch huge numbers with ease, etc? (maybe polymath isn't an accurate term for such ability. If so, please excuse it.)

Lateral Thinking Puzzles, unlike most puzzles, are inexact. In a sense, they are a hybrid between puzzles and storytelling. In each puzzle, some clues to a scenario are given, but the clues don't tell the full story. Your job is to fill in the details and complete the story. Obviously, there is usually more than one answer to any given puzzle, but, in general, only one solution is truly satisfying. You can try solving these puzzles on your own -- that's certainly a legitimate way to go about this -- but usually you can have more fun if you involve other people. The way this works is, you look at the answer (maybe you want to try the puzzle on your own first!), then read just the clues to your friends. Your friends must determine the answer by asking questions about it, which you may answer only with yes, no, or doesn't matter. You can adjust the difficulty of the puzzle by varying the initial clues, throwing in red herrings, and so forth. Warning: For some reason, these puzzles have a tendency to be rather morbid. #1 Adults are holding children, waiting their turn. The children are handed (one at a time, usually) to a man, who holds them while a woman shoots them. If the child is crying, the man tries to stop the crying before the child is shot. #2 A cabin, locked from the inside, is perched on the side of a mountain. It is forced open, and thirty people are found dead inside. They had plenty of food and water. #3 A man marries twenty women in his village but isn't charged with polygamy. #4 A man is alone on an island with no food and no water, yet he does not fear for his life. #5 A woman came home with a bag of groceries, got the mail, and walked into the house. On the way to the kitchen, she went through the living room and looked at her husband, who had blown his brains out. She continued to the kitchen, put away the groceries, and made dinner. #6 Joe wants to go home but can't, because the man in the mask is waiting for him. #7 A dead man lies near a pile of bricks and a beetle on top of a book. #8 At the bottom of the sea there lies a ship worth millions of dollars that may never be recovered. #9 A man is found dead in the arctic with a pack on his back. #10 There is a dead man lying in the desert next to a rock.