As we grow old and memories start fading, we rarely dabble in any activity let alone mathematics. Grandma Moses, the American painter, and our own Rabindranath Tagore, who took up painting at the age of 70, are exceptions. Here is a remarkable story from Japan that was published in a Tokyo daily on May 5, 2006. Read on. Shokichi Iyanaga, a 100-year-old mathematician, continues to publish in the Japanese Journal of Mathematics. His most recent article, which explains the contributions of Claude Chevalley to class field theory, was published in the April 2006 issue. Iyanaga, born on April 2, 1906, in Tokyo, published his first article in the Japanese Journal of Mathematics in 1928. He is Emeritus Professor at the University of Tokyo and a member of the Japanese Academy of Sciences. The awards he has received include the Rising Sun from Japan in 1976 and the Order of Legion d’Honneur from France in 1980. His international career spans countries on three continents.

PUZZLE 1: Six friends ? three men and three women ? are enjoying various Tom Hanks performances by each lending a DVD of one of his or her favourite movies starring the Academy Award winner to another of the five. From the clues below, you should be able to determine which DVD each of the movie buffs owns and who is borrowing and currently enjoying it. Alex isn’t the friend who is watching Linda’s favourite Tom Hanks film and Linda isn’t the one watching Robert’s loaned DVD.

Melanie, who isn’t the Tom Hanks fan who owns the The Ladykillers DVD, isn’t the one borrowing Sleepless in Seattle. The person who is enjoying another’s copy of Road to Perdition doesn’t own The Green Mile. Two of the men are borrowing movies owned by two of the women; the man who is watching another man’s DVD has his copy of Cast Away.

Scott is borrowing neither Sleepless in Seattle nor Cast Away. Erica is borrowing neither The Green Mile nor Road to Perdition. The six movie swappers are Alex, Melanie, the woman who owns the Sleepless in Seattle DVD, the man who is borrowing The Ladykillers, the movie lover who owns the Road to Perdition DVD, and the person who is currently watching another’s copy of The Terminal. (source: *puzzle)

Solutions on May 29

CORRECT ENTRIES

May 1

K Sengupta, Cal- 1; Deepak Chowbey, Salt Lake; Soumya Shaw; Soumava Chakraborty, Golf Green; Shubhodeep Mukherjee; Subir Roy, Silchar; Debasree Burman, Haldia; Angshumit Dasgupta; Chanchal Kumar Roychowdhury, Chandannagore; Anurag Kumar; SPS Jain, Noida; Mohamed Mapara; Avik Chatterjee, Howrah; Suvadip Banerjee, Cal- 78; Pramit Bhattacharya; Aveek Ghosh; Sudipto Banerjee, Minneapolis; Shataneek Guha, Cal- 47; Sourjya Sinha Roy, Salt Lake; Megha Lundia, Madhyamgram; Amit Singh, North 24 Parganas.

PUZZLE CRACKED

The response this week was great. Here goes the solution sent by brainstormer Sudipto Banerjee.

Solution: Yes, all individuals can reach the other planet. Consider these abbreviations: F = Federation officer, A = alien that can fly a ship, a = alien that can’t fly a ship. Then the flight schedules to reach the other planet will be :

In the first trip, ‘A’ and ‘a’ go and ‘A’ returns.

In the second trip, again, ‘A’ and ‘a’ go and ‘A’ returns.

In the third trip, two ‘F’ go and one ‘F’ and one ‘a’ return.

In the fourth trip, ‘F’ and ‘A’ go and ‘F’ and ‘a’ return.

In the fifth trip, two ‘F’ go and ‘A’ returns.

In the sixth trip, ‘A’ and ‘a’ go and ‘a’ returns.

In the seventh trip, ‘A’ and ‘a’ go.