Welcome to this HCSSiM IT2025 SOUVENIR SHEET.
T. There are no problems on this page, and it does not have to be returned with your Interesting Test.
Diagrams such as these can help us understand how (N + 1)-dimensional cubes can be generated from
N -dimensional cubes. . .
0 1 2 3 4
. . . and how their vertices can be labeled.
1100 1101
1111
1110
1000 1001
0101
0100
1010 1011
0110
0111
0000 0001
0010 0011
They also help in the identification and counting of vertices (0-faces), edges (1-faces), 2-faces, etc.
For example, to count the edges of a 4-cube, we include the 12 edges from the “front” 3-cube and the 12
edges from the “rear” 3-cube; in addition, each of the 8 vertices of the 3-cube creates another edge by
joining it to the matching vertex of the other cube, making a total of 32 edges (also called 1-faces) for the
4-cube.
Below, you can see the 3-cubes (or 3-faces) that bound the 4-cube.
WELCOME TO THE 2nd SOUVENIR SHEET OF THE 2025 HCSSiM IT
N
Four ways to think about K
One could be used as the definition and then (via 3 theorems) proved equivalent to the others; or you could show that
they are pairwise equivalent with 42 = 6 theoremettes
A. Arithmetically.
N N · (N − 1) · (N − 2) · . . . · (N − K + 1) N N −1 N −2 N − K + 1 (N − K)! N!
= = · · · ··· · · = .
K 1 · 2 · 3 · ... · K 1 2 3 K (N − K)! K! · (N − K)!
!
A1 : N1 · N2−1 · N3−2 · · · · · N −K+1
K
is conceptually and computationally more natural than A2 : K!·(NN−K)! . It’s also the only of these
N
interpretations for K that allows generalizing N to be a negative integer, a fraction, a complex number, a matrix, or...
N
B. Binomially. The numbers K are the binomial coefficients:
N K
K
= the coefficient of x in the expansion of (1 + x)N ;
N
P K
The binomial theorem: (1 + x)N = N K=0 K x .
N
C. Combinatorially or set theoretically. ( K is read “N choose K”.)
N
= the number of K-element subsets of an N -element set.
K
D. Dynamically (Pascal’s triangle).
N
= the Kth term in the N th row of Pascal’s triangle (start both counts at 0),
K
defined recursively by:
N N N N −1 N −1
= = 1, = + .
0 N K K −1 K
Pascal’s triangle (Blaise Pascal, 1623 - 1662). Below right: Yang Hui’s triangle from the 1303 Precious Mirror of the Four Elements.
Divisibility by powers of 2
Odds in Pascal’s Triangle
Welcome to this Cover Page for the
2025 Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics
INTERESTING TEST
You should try to limit the time you spend on the 2025 HCSSiM Interesting Test (IT) to 8 or 9 hours, indicating as afterthoughts
later ideas (which can be sent separately). Send IT in just before you run out of ideas to try. We don’t want this application to
become a career or to interfere with other studies.
Enjoy the IT; expect much of IT to be unfamiliar, and don’t expect to complete all of IT. Email if you suspect that there is an error on
the IT or if a problem remains incomprehensible; do not suffer in silence. Send questions about the IT to: hcssim@[Link].
Please use the subject line: “your name’s IT Question date.”
Let us know if you can’t finish within 17 days. This is not a rigid deadline–just let us know that your candidacy is still active with a
note to sgoff@[Link] with the subject line: “your name’s application update date”. Important advice: Whenever you email
us, the email subject line should identify you and give hints about the date and content.
Let your reasoning and computations show. Use the provided spaces, but feel free to use the backs of pages and additional paper
as needed. Feel obligated to use additional space if the alternative is tiny-fonted cramped writing. Leave space between lines.
We do not need to see your scratch work, but you’re welcome to tell us about efforts that didn’t work out. Revise and neaten
your work. Please. The harder it is to decipher your writing or to find strands of logic or complete sentences, the less inclined
we’ll be to spend 6 weeks struggling with it this summer. Spend more time doing your math than digitizing it. Feel free to add
generalizations, speculations, counterexamples, and questions.
One reason you’ve applied to HCSSiM is that you enjoy sharing mathematics—but please do not share or discuss these problems.
(Instead, encourage eligible people to apply, promptly, to the Summer Studies themselves.)
We’re not testing your Internet search skills or AI inputting ability. Google is useful to find out in what year the 17th Emperor
of Ethiopia was born, but it doesn’t help us get to know how you think. If, when you first encounter a new mathematical idea
or problem, your first inclination is to look it up—then you might be a very successful math student, contestant, or researcher
but you’d probably not be happy at HCSSiM. Go someplace else if you only want to learn a lot of math results quickly or if your
primary goal is to improve test or contest scores (or to make your parents happy).
Prior knowledge need not be flaunted; we are not very concerned with how much you know. We’re interested in your responses to
challenges and in the potential and enthusiasm for growth. You are obliged to tell us if you have encountered relevant information
to this IT in the past or stumbled upon it more recently. Feel free to get (often necessary) help with arithmetic or English definitions
(e.g., by consulting a calculator or dictionary). Let us know if you create interesting software.
Important: Please combine things into as few files as possible (e.g., one pdf) and upload your IT either by clicking here or copying
this link into your browser: ([Link] You may use the same link to send us your afterthoughts,
additional work, later ideas, and midnight revelations. The name(s) of your submitted files should identify you and give hints
about the date and content: “Steve Neen 2025 IT - First Submission - September [Link]”. Paper submissions are still fine.
Send well-labeled things to:
David C. Kelly or Susan Goff
HCSSiM, Box NS
Hampshire College
893 West St.
Amherst, MA 01002-3359
Give us more feedback, please, when you have completed your work on the 2025 HCSSiM IT:
How and for how long did you work on the IT?
Which problems had you considered before?
Which, if any, did you particularly enjoy?
Particularly not enjoy?
Other comments:
Further thoughts:
Extra adjectives:
Thanks.
SOME SQUARED SUMS ARE SUMS OF SAME CUBES 2025 = (45)2 = (1 + 2 + . . . + )2 = 3 + 23 + . . . +
What does this picture suggest a proof of?
You may use this fact to solve the following problems without
providing your own proof of it. (You may also, of course, provide a
proof of this fact, an explanation of the picture, or other reasoning “why” if it
interests or excites you. The IT hopes this is the last time IT ever gives you
explicit permission to think about mathematics.)
Let’s discover other ways to create lists with the property that the squared sum of the elements of the list
is equal to the sum of the cubes of the same elements.
Here is one algorithm: Pick an M (for now, let’s try M = 153). Then find M ’s divisors. Finally, count how
many divisors each of M ’s divisors has; those numbers form a list:
153’s divisors 1 3 9 51 153
their divisors 1 1, 3 1, 3, 9 1, 1, 3, , 51 1, 3, 9, , 51, 153
number of ’em 1 2 3 2 4 6
It’s not hard to confirm that (1 + 2 + 3 + 2 + 4 + 6)2 = = 1 + 8 + 27 + 8 + 64 + 216.
It’s hard not to confirm that (1 + 2 + 3 + 2 + 4 + 6)2 = = 1 + 8 + 27 + 8 + 64 + 216.
What list is generated by M = pn where p is prime?
What about M = 170 = 2 · 5 · 17?
How about M = 2025 = 34 · 52 ?
Why does this algorithm work?
SOME SUMS SQUARED AND CUBED CONTINUED
Here’s a second way to find some squared sums equal to sums of same cubes, starting with any list.
Let’s start with the list L = ⟨2, 3, 5⟩.
First we find the quotient between the sum of the cubes and the squared sum:
23 + 3 3 + 5 3 8 + 27 + 125 160 8
= = = .
(2 + 3 + 5)2 102 100 5
So we start with 8 5’s: ⟨5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5⟩ and then multiply each of the 5’s by each of the members of L to
make a final list of 8 10’s, 8 15’s, and 8 25’s. We find that:
(10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 15 + 15 + 15 + 15 + 15 + 15 + 15 + 15 + 25 + 25 + 25 + 25 + 25 + 25 + 25 + 25)2
= 103 + 103 + 103 + 103 + 103 + 103 + 103 + 103 + 153 + 153 + 153 + 153 + 153 + 153 + 153 + 153 + 253 + 253 + 253 +
253 + 253 + 253 + 253 + 253 .
Test this method with a different initial list L.
Why does this method work?
PRIME FLOOPS
If M is a positive integer, a factor loop (or floop or M -floop) is an arrangement of M ’s positive integer
divisors into a closed cycle so that, whenever A and B are adjacent, A is a multiple of B or B is a multiple
of A.
A prime floop is a floop such that, if A and B are adjacent, then either A/B or B/A is a prime number.
Here are two prime floops: Please fill in the blanks to make Why is this 24-floop not a prime
1 2 1 this a prime floop: floop?
3 5 10 5 17 1 3 12
15 30 15 170 4 6
6 3 2 8 24
Can you arrange 24’s eight divisors to make a prime floop?
If you prefer to write floops as strings, e.g., “1 5 15 3”, we’ll bend them and put the ends together here in
Amherst.
Find M -floops for M = 8, M = 70, M = 75, and M = 100; if you possibly can, make them prime floops (and
if you can’t why can’t you?).
The numbers that can be adjacent to 45 in a prime floop are , , and .
If p is prime, how many of the cyclic arrangements of the divisors of pk form floops? Can you
| {z }
how many?
arrange them into a prime floop?
PRIME FLOOPS CONTINUED
Here are the divisors of p4 q 3 . Can you arrange them Can you find a prime floop for p4 q 2 ?
into a prime floop?
1 p p2 p3 p4
1 p p2 p3 p4 q q·p q · p2 q · p3 q · p4
q q·p q · p2 q · p3 q · p4 q2 q2 · p q 2 · p2 q 2 · p3 q 2 · p4
q2 q2 · p q 2 · p2 q 2 · p3 q 2 · p4
q3 q3 · p q 3 · p2 q 3 · p3 q 3 · p4
How about p68 q 3 ?
If p is a prime number that does not divide M , use a prime M -floop to create a prime pM -floop.
If p is a prime number that may or may not divide M , show how a prime M -floop can be used to create a
prime M p2 -floop.
For which values of M do you believe there exists a prime M -floop?
Please share reasons or proofs for your belief(s).
THE N-CUBE
Please refer to the 2025 HCSSiM Interesting Test n-cube souvenir page for definitions and diagrams that
might be useful for this question.
Can an ant start at one vertex, walk along edges (1-faces) of the n-cube visiting each vertex exactly once
and return to where it started? Does this relate to anything else on the IT?
T F The N -cube has exactly one N -face.
T F The singular of “vertices” is “vertex”.
T F A 1-face is the same as an edge.
T F Any 4 vertices of the n-cube are contained in some 2-face of the n-cube.
A square can be cut at one vertex and its edges can then be unfolded to a line; a cube can be cut along
edges, and then the 6 faces can be folded flat to the plane. Which of the patterns below can be
obtained by unfolding the 3-cube? Can you find a few other such patterns?
A tesseract can be cut along - and
.
Can you think of a way to measure the distance between 2 vertices of the N -cube?
Please fill out as much of this table as you can.
K 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Vertices Edges Faces Cells
N Names 0-faces 1-faces 2-faces 3-faces 4-faces 5-faces 6-faces SUM V-E+F-C+. . .
0 Point 1 0 0 0 0 0
1 Line segment 2 1 0 0 0 0 3 1
Square or
2 Tetragon 4 1
3 Cube or 6 0
Hexahedron
Hypercube or
4 Tesseract or 32
Octachoron
5 Pentaract or 80 80 10
Decateron
Hexaract or
6 Dodecapeton 192
17 17-cube
N N -cube
What is a K-face? How did you figure out how many K-faces there are?
Please feel obligated to create new writing space if needed to
Explain, comment, conjecture, question, or prove.
SHIPPING POLYGONS in TRIANGULAR PACKAGES
Interesting Triangle Shipping offers triangular containers of all
possible sizes. However, on any given day, ITS manufactures
containers of just one fixed similarity type T – and ITS never
announces what type T will be that day.
Willy Gope wishes to ship some convex polygons with ITS. In
order to prevent damage to a polygon in transit, the polygon
must fit snugly within the container, so that all of the polygon’s
vertices lie on the sides of the container.
Draw the two types T in which Willy can ship this convex hexagon H:
Willy is automatically out of luck if the wished-to-be-shipped convex polygon P has more than N =
sides, because
If P is a convex pentagon, then there are i types T in which Willy can snugly ship P :
If P is a convex pentagon, then there are m types T in which Willy cannot snugly ship P :
SHIPPING POLYGONS in TRIANGULAR PACKAGES CONTINUED
Explain why Willy can ship a square S if T is this right triangle:
Explain why Willy can ship a square S if T is any type of triangle.
√
What if instead Willy has a rectangle R to ship, with sides in proportion 17 : π?
Show that Willy cannot snugly ship a quadrilateral Q, with inner angles 60◦ , 60◦ , 90◦ , 150◦ , and outer
angles 30◦ , 30◦ , if T is the similarity type with inner angles 10◦ , 10◦ , 160◦ . Figure below not to scale.
SHIPPING POLYGONS in TRIANGULAR PACKAGES CONTINUED ×2
Share thoughts, proofs, conjectures, ... about which quadrilaterals Q Willy Gope can or cannot snugly
ship with ITS, regardless of the similarity type T .
LOTS OF LIGHTS
A puzzle that might be familiar to you begins with lots of lights numbered 1, 2, 3, . . . N , all initially off;
someone turns on every light; then someone else turns off every other light (2, 4, 6, . . .); someone then
reverses every 3rd light (turning off those that are on, and turning on those that are off); then every 4th
light is reversed; then every 5th, every 6th, . . . , and, finally, every N th.
After all this, which lights are on?
Why?
Were you familiar with this puzzle?
Does this problem relate to anything else on the IT?
A LITTLE BONUS
For your post-IT observational enjoyment (no problems, just a few blanks), the lights return for an encore:
Here are all the lights: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
Remove every 2nd: 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17
Form the cumulative sums: 1 4 9 16 25 36 49 64 81
wow!
Bring back the lights: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
Remove every 3rd: 1 2 4 5 7 8 10 11 13 14 16 17
Form the cumulative sums: 1 3 7 12 19 27 37 48 61 75 91 108
Remove every 2nd: 1 7 19 37 61 91
Form the cumulative sums: 1 8
When you are ready to submit your work, please return to the cover page and share your comments
on the 2025 HCSSiM Interesting Test.
