From: Bill Dubuque Date: Thursday, April 10, 2003 1:06am To: math-fun mailing list Did you know that the UnaBomber enjoyed playing with matches? Below is one of his problems. A Match Stick Problem, Mathematics Magazine, Jan-Feb 1971 p.41 http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0025-570X(197101)44:1<41:PAS> 787. Proposed by T. J. Kaczynski, Lombard, Illinois Suppose we have a supply of matches of unit length. Let there be given a square sheet of cardboard, n units on a side. Let the sheet be divided by lines into n^2 little squares. The problem is to place matches on the cardboard in such a way that: a) each match covers a side of one of the little squares, and b) each of the little squares has exactly two of its sides covered by matches. (Matches are not allowed to be placed on the edge of the cardboard.) For what values of n does the problem have a solution? Solutions: Richard A. Gibbs: invokes Pick's theorem Richard L. Breisch: solves m by n generalization Math. Mag v.44 #5 Nov-Dec 1971 p.294 http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0025-570X(197111)44:5<294:PAS> Thomas Wray: solves n-dim generalization (match -> n-1 dim cube) Math. Mag. v.45 #2 Mar-Apr 1972 p.110 http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0025-570X(197203)45:2<110:PAS> -Bill Dubuque * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * From: Thane Plambeck Date: Thursday, April 10, 2003 10:55 am To: math-fun mailing list Subject: The Unabomber's Mathematical Locutions Back in 1995 I remember reading a copy of the Unabomber Manifesto over lunch in a bar in Princeton, New Jersey. It had been just been published in the New York Times. He hadn't been caught yet, but was about to be. I remember thinking as I read it, you know, this guy uses a lot of mathematical turns of phrases. I even told the bartender my guess that the Unabomber was a mathematician, or maybe a physicist. A few weeks later he was arrested. I went into the same bar and the bartender remembered my prediction. He gave me a free lunch. Anyway here's a couple of chunks from the Manifesto. There are others... ------- In the past, human nature has been approximately constant, or at any rate has varied only within certain bounds... ------- Throughout this article we've made imprecise statements and statements that ought to have had all sorts of qualifications and reservations attached to them; and some of our statements may be flatly false. Lack of sufficient information and the need for brevity made it impossible for us to formulate our assertions more precisely or add all the necessary qualifications. And of course in a discussion of this kind one must rely heavily on intuitive judgment, and that can sometimes be wrong. So we don't claim that this article expresses more than a crude approximation to the truth... ------- Thane Plambeck 650 321 4884 office 650 323 4928 fax http://www.qxmail.com/home.htm * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * From: Bill Thurston Date: Thursday, April 10, 2003 11:44 am To: math-fun mailing list Re: The Unabomber's Mathematical Locutions I also read the manifesto, and I thought he sounded quite a bit like a mathematician. The manifesto actually seemed pretty well reasoned from a logical point of view, it's just off-base from a social perspective---an exaggerated form of a common mathematician's personality. I told a number of people, but nobody gave me a free lunch. However, I was surprised to learn that he'd had an office in Berkeley in T-4 at the same time I had an office there as a grad student and hung out quite a lot. Like most others in the building at the time, I had no recollection of him. Bill Thurston