Problems

Describe the surface which we can get if we start with a rectangular sheet of paper, make a Moebius band by glueing the opposite sides in the opposite directions and then glue the other opposite sides of the paper band in the opposite direction as on the picture.

\(ABC\) is a triangle. The circumscribed circle is the circle that touches all three vertices of the triangle \(ABC\). It is also the smallest circle lying entirely outside the triangle. The center of the circumscribed circle is \(D\).

The inscribed circle is the circle which touches all three sides of the triangle \(ABC\). It is also the largest circle lying entirely inside the triangle. The center of the inscribed circle is \(E\).

The points \(D\) and \(E\) are symmetric with respect to the segment \(AC\). Find the angles of the triangle \(ABC\).

Scrooge McDuck has \(100\) golden coins on his office table. He wants to distribute them into \(10\) piles so that no two piles contain the same amount of coins. Moreover, no matter how you divide any of the piles into two smaller piles, among the resulting \(11\) piles there will be two with the same amount of coins. Find an example of how he could do that.

A parliament has 650 members. In this parliament there is only one house and every member has at most three enemies. We wish to split this parliament into two separate houses in such a way that each member will have at most one enemy in the same house as them. We assume that hard feelings among members of parliament are mutual, namely if \(A\) recognises \(B\) as their enemy, then \(B\) also recognises \(A\) as their enemy.

Is this splitting possible?

Suppose you have a coffee mug made of stretchy and expandable material. How do you mold it into a donut that has a hole inside?

Take a straight string of finite length. Put the right half on top of the left half to form a hoop, and then pass it (the piece now on top) through the hoop from underneath. Glue the two ends together to form the trefoil knot.

Draw a sequence of pictures to illustrate the formation of the trefoil knot.

In the picture below, each side is glued in the same direction as its opposite side. Draw a sequence of pictures to show the gluing process and the final shape.

Take a straight string of finite length. Wrap the right half over and then under the left half so that it is pointing to the right again and there is a hoop. Pass the right pointing piece through the hoop from above. Glue the two ends together to form the figure-8 knot.

Draw a sequence of pictures to illustrate the formation of the figure-8 knot, seen below.

Explain why it is possible to have a picture of a figure-8 knot with 100 crossings.

Imagine the Earth is a perfectly round solid ball. Let us drill from the North Pole, London and Beijing simultaneously and meet at the centre of Earth. A ball with three openings is formed. The surface of this ball is shown on the left of the picture below. Describe how to stretch this surface so that it looks like the surface of a donut with two holes as shown on the right.