Games | Jokes | Trivia | Brainteasers

Throughout the year, we will post problems to the Math Club website. Every week there will be a new problem posted. If a UCSD undergraduate student solves the current problem, his or her name and solution to the problem will be posted in the archives. If the previous week's problem is not solved, it will be moved to the archives. It will remain open until one person emails a correct solution to the Math Club.

The UCSD undergraduate student who solves the most problems by the end of the school year will receive a prize.

Some of the problems will be easy, some of them will be hard, but we won't tell you which are easy and which are hard. You'll just have to try them and see!

Submit your solution to the problem by emailing the Math Advisor (don't forget to include enough detail to show us exactly how you got to your solution).

The Brainteaser Archive (old brainteasers, their solutions, and unsolved brainteasers).

...And now, for the current brainteaser:

Game of SOS Two players play a game on 1 by 2000 grid (a line of 2000 squares) as follows.  Each player in turn puts either S or O into an empty square.  The first player who produces three consecutive boxes that spell SOS wins.  If all the squares are filled without getting S, O, S, then the game is drawn.  Show that the second player has a winning strategy.  Submit your answers to the UCSD Math Advising Office, located in room 6016 of the Applied Physics and Mathematics building in Muir College, or email your solutions to the Math Advising Officer. Remember, the first person to solve the problem gets his or her name listed here on our web site. What are you waiting for? Get to work!

Other Unsolved Brainteasers

Polynomial Images, February 2004, UNSOLVED