Gazette 31 Vol 3 - Australian Mathematical Society

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178 We have not shown this result is best possible, i.e., we have not tried to find explicit schedules attaining these bounds. We leave this (presumably straightforward) task to the reader. Note that the current AFL system can lead to a requirement that is nearly as large as possible in terms of wins required over games played: the maximum value of w(m)/(15 + m) is 0.804, attained for m = 8; for the current system with m = 7, w(7)/22 = 0.795. The perceived unfairness of the AFL finals system itself was considered in [1]. References [1] George A. Christos, New AFL finals system is unfair, AustMS <strong>Gazette</strong> 27 (2000). [2] Neil Craig, http://afc.com.au/default.asp?pg=news\&spg=display\&articleid=196771. School of <strong>Mathematical</strong> Sciences, University of Adelaide, Australia 5005 E-mail: robert.clarke@adelaide.edu.au Received 13 May 2005.
What is Mathematics? Patrick D. Bangert “So, what’s mathematics then?” asked the slightly tipsy man at the bar counter of the one beside him who had foolishly admitted to being a mysterious, legendary creature about whom many fireside tales and seaman’s yarn had been woven – a mathematician. The word is only to be whispered in the dark with fear in your eyes and dread in your heart lest a member of that primordial tribe comes to you on fast wings and subjects you to death by boredom with wild tales of conjectures, problems of unspeakable difficulty and – worst of all – analyses of the axiom of choice! The man at the bar has no inkling of the dawn of an idea yet of how ghastly the answer to his imprudent enquiry will be. Take a deep breath, dear reader, for once the threshold of mathematics has been crossed, there is no return. You shall be lured, enthralled and cursed forever with a fascination none but fellows will ever understand. The present investigator has thrown caution into the wind and with reckless abandon decided to investigate the answer to the question. In the dead of night, hidden in the comforting velvet folds of darkness, questions were put to throngs of mathematicians (7705 individuals and 2339 institutions), 247 of which resolved unwaveringly to answer. Among the questions put to them was this: How would you define ‘mathematics’? This present article is a tribute to the brave people who wrote to me and to all the parents of mathematicians who, with a slightly exasperated look on their faces, finally want to know after all these long and silent years: “What are you doing”? Perhaps then the comments about getting a proper job will cease or begin in earnest. One should not give heed to the fruits of one’s labours if one is to be happy in life 179 and so we soldier on, regardless of the outcome. The fact that we could not know the outcome if we did not soldier on shall remain delicately stated in this very sentence. If I had said ‘unstated’ I would have lied and I have always been taught not to. No matter, let us step once more into the breech, dear friends. (Respondents, who shall remain anonymous, made all statements in double quotes except where credited to someone else.) 1 Works of Reference “All these difficulties are but consequences of our refusal to see that mathematics cannot be defined without acknowledging its most obvious feature: namely, that it is interesting”. M. Polanyi [1] Two people pointed their fingers to that hefty tome of modern lore behind which we all hide our ignorance and which we occasionally use to buttress doors — the dictionary. While the set of dictionaries is finite, it is also large in that it contains more than two elements. It has been considered impractical to consult each dictionary. This is mainly due to the assurance of the investigator’s friends — and he has no reason to distrust them — that he is not, in fact, capable of reading Chinese and that thus he could not, even if he tried, read all dictionaries. In the dictionaries that one did consult, the number of essentially distinct definitions grew approximately logarithmically with the number of consulted dictionaries. This further substantiates the claim that it is not actually necessary to read all dictionaries. It seems that the writers of dictionaries are prone to the usual human faults of sloth, fraud, plagiarism and eating
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Page 7 and 8: in finite and discrete mathematics
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Page 11 and 12: 1 More Than Child’s Play Tic-Tac-
Page 13 and 14: 2 How to Get N in a Row Stealing St
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Page 33 and 34: 2005 Queen’s Birthday honours Med
Page 35 and 36: Obituary 175 From 2003-2005 Hilary
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Page 41 and 42: way, we attain to the idea that mat
Page 43 and 44: In spite of the primordial drive to
Page 45 and 46: the body of mathematics is the coll
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Page 53 and 54: Connected co-spectral graphs are no
Page 55 and 56: From tent-like functions to Lucas s
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Page 63 and 64: [7] B. Ripley, Neural Networks for
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Page 73 and 74: News 213 8th International Conferen
Page 75 and 76: News 215 Prof. Chaohua Dong; Shanxi

Gazette 31 Vol 3 - Australian Mathematical Society

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