While educationists keep talking about how to encourage students to take up mathematics as a career, there is little participation from the industry, where mathematics is most visible.

Let’s call it ‘math-in-action’ sector. Recently executives from Citigroup made a presentation to high school classes in the US, using skits, mock loan applications and a slide show to demonstrate how the principles of calculus and statistics improve the quality of decision-making.

Citigroup Vice-President Dana Eng, who also serves as the director of Citibank’s Global Strategic Analytics Unit, was joined by Vice-President Darren Stewart, who told the students, “Everyday we rely on applied mathematics for decision-making, ranging from whether or not to approve an application for a mortgage to determining whether or not a credit card transaction may be fraudulent.” Can’t we have similar interactions here?

PUZZLE 1: Can you circle exactly four of these numbers such that the total is twelve?

I 6 I

6 I 6

I 6 I

6 I 6

PUZZLE 2: These are what-you-see puzzles. Solve them simply by reading.

1. EEEEEEEEEE C

2. cover

going

3. R E A D

PUZZLE 3: I am eight letters long ? “12345678”

My 1234 is an atmospheric condition.

My 34567 supports a plant.

My 4567 is to appropriate.

My 45 is a friendly thank-you.

My 678 is a man’s name.

What word am I?

Solutions on August 8

CORRECT ENTRIES

July 11

Ravi Chandra Gona, Florida; Shreya Sen, Cal-1; Abhishek Ray, MNIT-Cal; Devika Bharati, Ranchi; Vishal Lama, Siliguri; Moumita Tripathi, IEM-Salt Lake; Radhika Nangia, Cal-56; Manisha Bakshi, Dhanbad; Pradip Chaudhary; Sudip Sur, Ballygunge; Ravi Raja, Cal-20

CORRECT ENTRIES

July 4

S.P.S. Jain, New Delhi; Santosh Kumar Gupta, Rourkela; Dhrubajyoti Daityari, Santoshpur; Koushik Dutta, Cal-54; Sandeep Sinha Howrah; Debjani Ganguly,Behala; Bappa Bain, Teghoria; Subhasish Dey, Jamshedpur; A.K. Mitra, Cal-20; Samir Kumar Ghosh, Shantiniketan; Abhik Banerjee; Jyotirmoy Datta; Abhishek Mukherjee; Arundathi Mitra, Bhagalpur.

Please send your entries addressed to knowhow@abpmail.com within 10 days. Postal address is Brainstorming, The Telegraph, 6 Prafulla Sarkar Street, Calcutta- 700 001. Don’t forget to mention the date of the puzzle. Send complete solutions, not one-line answers.

PUZZLE CRACKED

The response to the R2D2 trophy problem (July 11) was lukewarm. But I’m happy that many of the solutions are correct.

These are the answers:

a) BasherBorg was built by Susan Malden and Tom Wynn;

b) RoboWrecker was built by Beth Cisco and Dan Kennedy;

c) MechanoMonster was built by Carrie Fisher and Randy Lucas;

d) DeathDroid was built by Jenny Nash and Andy Teller.

1. In the first round: BasherBorg defeated RoboWrecker; MechanoMonster defeated DeathDroid.

2. In the championship round, BasherBorg defeated MechanoMonster.

3. In the consolation round, RoboWrecker defeated DeathDroid.