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Cannonball Problem
In the mathematics of figurate numbers, the cannonball problem asks which numbers are both square and square pyramidal. The problem can be stated as: given a square arrangement of cannonballs, for what size squares can these cannonballs also be arranged into a square pyramid? Equivalently, which squares can be represented as the sum of consecutive squares, starting from 1? Formulation as a Diophantine equation When cannonballs are stacked within a square frame, the number of balls is a square pyramidal number; Thomas Harriot gave a formula for this number around 1587, answering a question posed to him by Sir Walter Raleigh Sir Walter Raleigh (; – 29 October 1618) was an English statesman, soldier, writer and explorer. One of the most notable figures of the Elizabethan era, he played a leading part in English colonisation of North America, suppressed rebell ... on their expedition to America. Édouard Lucas formulated the cannonball problem as a Diophantine equation : ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rye Castle, Rye, East Sussex, England-6April2011 (1)
Rye (''Secale cereale'') is a grass grown extensively as a grain, a cover crop and a forage crop. It is grown principally in an area from Eastern and Northern Europe into Russia. It is much more tolerant of cold weather and poor soil than other cereals, making it useful in those regions; its vigorous growth suppresses weeds and provides abundant forage for animals early in the year. It is a member of the wheat tribe (Triticeae) which includes the cereals wheat and barley. It is likely that rye arrived in Europe as a secondary crop, meaning that it was a minor admixture in wheat as a result of Vavilovian mimicry, and was only later cultivated in its own right. Rye grain is used for bread, beer, rye whiskey, and animal fodder. In Scandinavia, rye was a staple food in the Middle Ages, and rye crispbread remains a popular food in the region. Europe produces around half of the world's rye; relatively little is traded between countries. A wheat-rye hybrid, triticale, combines the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Mathematical Monthly
''The American Mathematical Monthly'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal of mathematics. It was established by Benjamin Finkel in 1894 and is published by Taylor & Francis on behalf of the Mathematical Association of America. It is an expository journal intended for a wide audience of mathematicians, from undergraduate students to research professionals. Articles are chosen on the basis of their broad interest and reviewed and edited for quality of exposition as well as content. The editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The editor-in-chief heads all departments of the organization and is held accoun ... is Vadim Ponomarenko ( San Diego State University). The journal gives the Lester R. Ford Award annually to "authors of articles of expository excellence" published in the journal. Editors-in-chief The following persons are or have ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Close-packing Of Equal Spheres
In geometry, close-packing of equal spheres is a dense arrangement of congruent spheres in an infinite, regular arrangement (or Lattice (group), lattice). Carl Friedrich Gauss proved that the highest average density – that is, the greatest fraction of space occupied by spheres – that can be achieved by a Lattice (group), lattice packing is :\frac \approx 0.74048. The same packing density can also be achieved by alternate stackings of the same close-packed planes of spheres, including structures that are aperiodic in the stacking direction. The Kepler conjecture states that this is the highest density that can be achieved by any arrangement of spheres, either regular or irregular. This conjecture was proven by Thomas Callister Hales, Thomas Hales. The highest density is so far known only for 1, 2, 3, 8, and 24 dimensions. Many crystal structures are based on a close-packing of a single kind of atom, or a close-packing of large ions with smaller ions filling the spaces between t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Square Triangular Number
In mathematics, a square triangular number (or triangular square number) is a number which is both a triangular number and a square number, in other words, the sum of all integers from 1 to n has a square root that is an integer. There are infinitely many square triangular numbers; the first few are: Solution as a Pell equation Write N_k for the kth square triangular number, and write s_k and t_k for the sides of the corresponding square and triangle, so that Define the ''triangular root'' of a triangular number N=\tfrac to be n. From this definition and the quadratic formula, Therefore, N is triangular (n is an integer) if and only if 8N+1 is square. Consequently, a square number M^2 is also triangular if and only if 8M^2+1 is square, that is, there are numbers x and y such that x^2-8y^2=1. This is an instance of the Pell equation x^2-ny^2=1 with n=8. All Pell equations have the trivial solution x=1,y=0 for any n; this is called the zeroth solution, and indexed as (x ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Triangular Number
A triangular number or triangle number counts objects arranged in an equilateral triangle. Triangular numbers are a type of figurate number, other examples being square numbers and cube numbers. The th triangular number is the number of dots in the triangular arrangement with dots on each side, and is equal to the sum of the natural numbers from 1 to . The first 100 terms sequence of triangular numbers, starting with the 0th triangular number, are Formula The triangular numbers are given by the following explicit formulas: where \textstyle is notation for a binomial coefficient. It represents the number of distinct pairs that can be selected from objects, and it is read aloud as " plus one choose two". The fact that the nth triangular number equals n(n+1)/2 can be illustrated using a visual proof. For every triangular number T_n, imagine a "half-rectangle" arrangement of objects corresponding to the triangular number, as in the figure below. Copying this arrangement ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tetrahedral Number
A tetrahedral number, or triangular pyramidal number, is a figurate number that represents a pyramid (geometry), pyramid with a triangular base and three sides, called a tetrahedron. The th tetrahedral number, , is the sum of the first triangular numbers, that is, : Te_n = \sum_^n T_k = \sum_^n \frac = \sum_^n \left(\sum_^k i\right) The tetrahedral numbers are: :1, 4, 10, 20 (number), 20, 35 (number), 35, 56 (number), 56, 84 (number), 84, 120 (number), 120, 165 (number), 165, 220 (number), 220, ... Formula The formula for the th tetrahedral number is represented by the 3rd rising factorial of divided by the factorial of 3: :Te_n= \sum_^n T_k = \sum_^n \frac = \sum_^n \left(\sum_^k i\right)=\frac = \frac The tetrahedral numbers can also be represented as binomial coefficients: :Te_n=\binom. Tetrahedral numbers can therefore be found in the fourth position either from left or right in Pascal's triangle. Proofs of formula This proof uses the fact that the th triangular num ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Squaring The Square
Squaring the square is the problem of tessellation, tiling an integral square using only other integral squares. (An integral square is a square (geometry), square whose sides have integer length.) The name was coined in a humorous analogy with squaring the circle. Squaring the square is an easy task unless additional conditions are set. The most studied restriction is that the squaring be perfect, meaning the sizes of the smaller squares are all different. A related problem is squaring the plane, which can be done even with the restriction that each natural number occurs exactly once as a size of a square in the tiling. The order of a squared square is its number of constituent squares. Perfect squared squares A "perfect" squared square is a square such that each of the smaller squares has a different size. Perfect squared squares were studied by R. Leonard Brooks, R. L. Brooks, Cedric Smith (statistician), C. A. B. Smith, Arthur Harold Stone, A. H. Stone and W. T. Tutte (wr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bosonic String Theory
Bosonic string theory is the original version of string theory, developed in the late 1960s. It is so called because it contains only bosons in the spectrum. In the 1980s, supersymmetry was discovered in the context of string theory, and a new version of string theory called superstring theory (supersymmetric string theory) became the real focus. Nevertheless, bosonic string theory remains a very useful model to understand many general features of perturbative string theory, and many theoretical difficulties of superstrings can actually already be found in the context of bosonic strings. Problems Although bosonic string theory has many attractive features, it falls short as a viable physical model in two significant areas. First, it predicts only the existence of bosons whereas many physical particles are fermions. Second, it predicts the existence of a mode of the string with imaginary mass, implying that the theory has an instability to a process known as "tachyon conde ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leech Lattice
In mathematics, the Leech lattice is an even unimodular lattice Λ24 in 24-dimensional Euclidean space which is one of the best models for the kissing number problem. It was discovered by . It may also have been discovered (but not published) by Ernst Witt in 1940. Characterization The Leech lattice Λ24 is the unique lattice in 24-dimensional Euclidean space, E24, with the following list of properties: *It is unimodular lattice, unimodular; i.e., it can be generated by the columns of a certain 24×24 matrix (mathematics), matrix with determinant 1. *It is even; i.e., the square of the length of each vector in Λ24 is an even integer. *The length of every non-zero vector in Λ24 is at least 2. The last condition is equivalent to the condition that unit balls centered at the points of Λ24 do not overlap. Each is tangent to 196,560 neighbors, and this is known to be the largest number of non-overlapping 24-dimensional unit balls that can kissing number, simultaneously t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elementary Proof
In mathematics, an elementary proof is a mathematical proof that only uses basic techniques. More specifically, the term is used in number theory to refer to proofs that make no use of complex analysis. Historically, it was once thought that certain theorems, like the prime number theorem, could only be proved by invoking "higher" mathematical theorems or techniques. However, as time progresses, many of these results have also been subsequently reproven using only elementary techniques. While there is generally no consensus as to what counts as elementary, the term is nevertheless a common part of the mathematical jargon. An elementary proof is not necessarily simple, in the sense of being easy to understand or trivial. In fact, some elementary proofs can be quite complicated — and this is especially true when a statement of notable importance is involved.. Prime number theorem The distinction between elementary and non-elementary proofs has been considered especially important ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Figurate Number
The term figurate number is used by different writers for members of different sets of numbers, generalizing from triangular numbers to different shapes (polygonal numbers) and different dimensions (polyhedral numbers). The ancient Greek mathematicians already considered triangular numbers, polygonal numbers, tetrahedral numbers, and pyramidal numbers, ReprintedG. E. Stechert & Co., 1934 and AMS Chelsea Publishing, 1944. and subsequent mathematicians have included other classes of these numbers including numbers defined from other types of polyhedra and from their analogs in other dimensions. Terminology Some kinds of figurate number were discussed in the 16th and 17th centuries under the name "figural number". In historical works about Greek mathematics the preferred term used to be ''figured number''. In a use going back to Jacob Bernoulli's Ars Conjectandi, the term ''figurate number'' is used for triangular numbers made up of successive integers, tetrahedral numbers made ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elliptic Function
In the mathematical field of complex analysis, elliptic functions are special kinds of meromorphic functions, that satisfy two periodicity conditions. They are named elliptic functions because they come from elliptic integrals. Those integrals are in turn named elliptic because they first were encountered for the calculation of the arc length of an ellipse. Important elliptic functions are Jacobi elliptic functions and the Weierstrass \wp-function. Further development of this theory led to hyperelliptic functions and modular forms. Definition A meromorphic function is called an elliptic function, if there are two \mathbb- linear independent complex numbers \omega_1,\omega_2\in\mathbb such that : f(z + \omega_1) = f(z) and f(z + \omega_2) = f(z), \quad \forall z\in\mathbb. So elliptic functions have two periods and are therefore doubly periodic functions. Period lattice and fundamental domain If f is an elliptic function with periods \omega_1,\omega_2 it also holds ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
