Pog?

— Glenn “Pogchamp” Stevens

PROMYS Scavenger Hunt Test #1.5 Boston, July 29, 2022

Exploration. For the most points, be inventive!

P1: Stage a protest. Form your ideals. Are they principled? Are they left or right ideals? Are they radical? Can you
annihilate them?
P2: Find a 1 in nature. Find a 2 in nature. Find a 3 in nature. Are the naturals natural?
P3: Find math on a chalkboard that you don’t understand. Bonus points for learning what it means and explaining it.
P4: Find the number of rooms in CAS. How many of them are open? How many are not closed? Can you find a
clopen room? Any conjectures?
P5: Find all subsets of counselors such that their ages add up to 67. Take a picture. Bonus points if they make the
number in the picture.
P6: Find the following: a ring, a group, a root, a square, a field, a tree, a forest, a stalk, a stack, a germ, a sheaf, a
variety of flags, a spherical building. Can you see the forest for the trees?
P7: Find something shrektacular. Does it live up to your expectations?
Techniques of Generalization. Additional points will be awarded for generalizations.
P8: Can you draw a banana behind your back? Peel a banana behind your back? Eat a banana behind your back?
P9: Take a selfie. Take a selfie of someone taking a selfie. Take a selfie of someone taking a selfie of someone taking
a selfie.
P10: Can your group fit in a sidewalk square? In half a sidewalk square? In a quarter sidewalk square?
P11: Find pictures of fractions. Fractions of pictures. Pictures of fractals. Pictures of \mathfrak. Pictures of Fra(n)klin.
P12: Is Morbius one of the movies of all time? Can you generalize?
Prove or Disprove and Salvage if Possible. Remember to give counterexamples to all false statements and salvage
if necessary.
P13: Never gonna give you up. Never gonna let you down. Never gonna turn around and hurt you.
P14: Everything you read is true. True on the internet. True on a chalkboard. True on the sidewalk.
P15: All proofs written in Hagoromo are false. PODASIP in Hagoromo.
P16: Warren Towers is the only building in which PROMYS has been held.
P17: PROMYS students are path connected. PROMYS students are simply connected. PROMYS students are totally
connected.
P18: The periodic table in STO B50 is error-free.
P19: Any path from Warren to STO B50 crosses the green line.
P20: Let p be a prime. A slay times a slay is slay mod p. An antislay times an antislay is a slay mod p. Any
conjectures? What is a slay times an antislay?
P21: Logic is math. Math is art. Logic is art. Is is transitive. Make examples.
P22: X is mandatory ⇐⇒ X is fun. True for mandatory fun. True for lectures. True for the midterm.
Numerical Problems. (Some food for thought) Remember to make conjectures!
P23: Can you find a BU classroom number ≥ 100 that is prime? Square? Two classroom numbers that are a solution
to x2 − 2y 2 = 1? A classroom number with class number ≥ 5? Two classroom numbers whose quotient is a
convergent of the continued fraction of π? A classroom number that can be written as a sum of 2 squares in 6
different ways?
P24: Estimate the length of Warren Tower’s shadow at 8PM. At 7PM. At 6PM.
P25: Estimate the range of a watergun. Does it increase or decrease if used by a PROMYS student? By a Summer
challenge student?
P26: Compute the planar dual of the graph of BU buildings with PROMYS classes.
1
P27: Compute the expected time before we have another fire alarm related to microwave misuse.
P28: Compute the number of skips to get from Warren to the dining hall.
P29: Compute your Social Insecurity Number and mother’s maiden name.
P30: Estimate the number of doors. Estimate the number of wheels. Any conjectures?
P31: The board in STO B50 moves upwards at π cm per second. How many lheemas can Henry Cohn write before
the board disappears?
Miscellaneous Problems.
P32: Prove the Hahn Lheema.
P33: Crabwalk down a city block.
P34: Find a non-PROMYS human to act as a calculator. Can they help you win the calculator race?
P35: Sing the Mandatory Fun song for a group of non-PROMYS humans. Have them rate your performance.
P36: Make a skit that is mandatory and fun.
P37: Recreate pictures of counselors sleeping.
Ingenuity.
P38: Teach a non-PROMYS human why a · 0 = 0. Bonus points if they can repeat the proof to the camera!
P39: Explain a sidewalk poem to a non-PROMYS human.
P40: Find a non-PROMYS human, and have them explain why Z has unique prime factorization. Which √of the
√ √
following rings do they think also have unique prime factorization: Z[i], Z[ 21 ], Z[ 2], Z[ −5], Z[ 1+ 2−67 ].
The ring of continuous functions R → R. Bonus points if they explain their reasoning!
P41: Give a proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem as an interpretive dance.
P42: Does there exist a configuration of ≥ 4 PROMYS students that touches the ground in exactly 2 places?
P43: Can you construct a cyclic group of PROMYS students of order 5? Who’s the generator? Explain.