Neurobics

Answers To Last Month's Puzzle

1. Besides having value 13, each side of the equals (=) sign has 13 letters and is an anagram of the other.

2. If a male is chosen randomly from a family of size four or less he is most likely to be an eldest son. In New Zealand (and elsewhere?) by far the greatest majority of families with at least one son have less than five children, so the statement is true. Similarly, most daughters are eldest daughters. Combining the results, however, does not prove that most children are eldest children.

3. This depends on the number you thought of, but it is true that the process, written mathematically as 2n² + 11, produces lots of primes. It is fairly easy to see that if you thought of the number 11 a prime would not result.

4. Unless an assumption is made about the pattern continuing, the next number in the sequence can't be found. If it helps I was using the formula (n-1) (n-2) (n-3) (n-4) (n-5) + n² -- 1 to generate the terms. Or was I?

5. The correct answer is (a).

Russell Dear is a Mathematician living in Invercargill