Mathematical Puzzles and Paradoxes - Sarah Hart

Many puzzles have a long history, such as water pouring puzzles, where you need to measure (for example) one pint of water equipped only with an eight-pint and a five-pint jug. The mathematics behind the solution has many useful applications.
Meanwhile, paradoxes such as: “some men shave themselves; those that do not shave themselves are shaved by the barber: who shaves the barber?” lead us to deep questions about set theory.
We will discuss several examples and the related mathematics.
This lecture was recorded by Sarah Hart on 30th January 2024 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London
Sarah is Gresham Professor of Geometry.
She is also Professor Emerita of Mathematics at Birkbeck, University of London.
The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:
www.gresham.ac...
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[@philipsmith1990]

So mathematics is defective. Yet mathematics works every day producing powerful and useful results. This is the true paradox.

[@ChrisJones-hs6nj]

Well that escalated quickly!!

[@bobnewmanknott3433]

Someone enjoys their work and knows how go share it !

[@justneoh8253]

I see it coming, lectures about mathematical puzzles and paradoxes will end up talking about Gödel’s incompleteness theorem.😂

[@user-xy3dy1pp5m]

Some of these paradoxes are not really a paradox. If a person says that he will be hanged, that does not mean that he is being hanged for lying, just that he will be hanged, no paradox. If the barber shaves only people that do not shave themselves, then the barber does not shave at all.

[@shamdonnosnikta9570]

The tortoise one is not a paradox the guy is moving at a faster pace than the reptile thus catchup and move passed it

[@MrCrashtesttim]

Rubric’s cube appeared in UK university maths departments in 1979, not “the 1980s”. I bought one from someone in the Oxford Maths Dept for my little brother for Christmas 1979

[@RockPaperScissor267]

nice