Harold Widom, professor emeritus of mathematics, shares the 2007 Norbert Wiener Prize in Applied Mathematics with Craig Tracy, professor of mathematics, University of California, Davis. The American Mathematical Society and Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics jointly presents this prize every three years. Wiener Prize is awarded for outstanding contributions to applied mathematics in the highest and broadest sense. The prize was awarded on January 6 at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in New Orleans. The prize citation includes the following: “Craig Tracy and Harold Widom have done deep and original work on Random Matrix Theory, a subject which has remarkable applications across the scientific spectrum, from the scattering of neutrons off large nuclei to the behaviour of the zeros of the Riemann zeta-function.”

Puzzle:1 Consider a chessboard of any size. You and your opponent take it in turns to place a piece on the board until there is no more room. The winner is the last player to put their piece on the board. There is an unlimited supply of pieces and each piece covers exactly the same area of the board. You are not allowed to move any of the pieces already on the board when you place your piece. If you start, and play optimally, can your opponent win?

Puzzle:2 Scatterbrain the Treasurer was a bit of a ... well, scatterbrain, and he had forgotten how many gold, silver and bronze coins were kept in the town vaults. So he decided to ask the three guards, each of whom guarded one type of coin, how many coins were in his charge. However, the guards were uncooperative, and the best that Scatterbrain could get from each was a statement about the numbers of coins in the other two vaults. Dimwit, who was guarding the gold, said there were 3,000 silver and 5,000 bronze coins; Thickplank, who was in charge of the silver, said there were 3,000 gold and 5,000 bronze; while Beefbrain, who was protecting the bronze, said there were 4,000 gold and 3,000 silver. Unfortunately, only one guard was being truthful, each of the other two stating at least one false amount. If there were 12,000 coins altogether, how many of each type were there? (BRC)

Solutions on January 29

CORRECT ENTRIES

January 1

Debarghya Das Sharma, Calcutta — 75; Dipesh Kumar Kalyani, Durgapur; Kumardip Sen; Vineet Bhansali, Delhi; Sayonil Mitra, Shantiniketan; Anirban Acharya, Asansol; Souvik Roy; Moumita Tripathi, Howrah; N.K.Sinha, Calcutta; Subrata Kumar Chatterjee, Calcutta; Joshua Varghese

Please send in your entries within 10 days to knowhow@abpmail.com. Do not forget to mention the date of the puzzle in the subject of your puzzle. For snail mail the address is KnowHow, The Telegraph, 6, Prafulla Satkar Street, Calcutta — 700 001

PUZZLE CRACKED

The solution sent by Moumita Tripathy is as follows —

Solution: Ghosts in the White House appear on stage as follows:

Act 1, Scene 1: Grover Cleveland’s ghost, played by Joe Rose

Act 1, Scene 2: William Howard Taft’s ghost, played by Hal Prince

Act 1, Scene 3: Herbert Hoover’s ghost, played by Ken Queen

Act 2, Scene 1: Warren G. Harding’s ghost, played by Lou Trask

Act 2, Scene 2: Andrew Johnson’s ghost, played by Greg Stone

Act 2, Scene 3: James Buchanan’s ghost, played by Frank Oates