Monday, November 30, 2009

Post-A-level entertainment 3

A few issues:

1) CLASS OUTINGS!!!

Outing A: Basketball
Date: 3 December
Where: School basketball court (or anywhere else nearby that has a basketball court)
Time: 9am (and come earlier if possible)

Turn up if possible!!! Especially the PRC scholars!!! We put the outing in school specially for you =)

Outing B: BBQ
Date: 4 December
Where: President's house
Time: 5pm to 10pm

For more information on the 2 outings, please refer to the egroups!!!
And remember, these are only TENTATIVE outings, we need you to turn up to "make them come true"!!!

2) A COLD JOKE

Remember question 13 from physics paper 1? (yup, you got it wrong, stop cursing and swearing liao)
The idea is that P is directly proportional to v^3! I mean, if you read it out, you will say something like "P is directly proportional to v cubed"... You know, v cubed?...


...V-CUBE!!! Get what I mean? If you don't, oh well, never mind.

~DK~

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Post-A-level entertainment 2

While everyone wows (or boos) at gigaminx, I got yet another new puzzle!!! Bought it at Anchorpoint, there are PLENTY of interesting puzzles there (including monopoly, ticket to ride, cluedo, etc.), maybe we should organize a class outing and raid the stores there =)

Ok, back to the point, I got a new puzzle!!! Targetted it since prelims, but that time I decided not to spend too much yet (haven't offloaded my old megaminx to JJ yet). Yet I'm broke before yesterday (gigaminx cost a bomb), and even more broke now, went out with 4 different colours of Yusof bin Ishak's face in my pocket, and reached home with only coins in my wallet yesterday, sigh...


TA-DAAA!!! I duno it's official name, but for now I'll call it the 4-layer barrel, beats the usual "dodecahedron prism" which is quite a mouthful... And not everyone knows what's a "dodecahedron"... they might know how many sides it has though, if you call it "december-hedron" haha =P

And in case it's not very clear how it turns, you can turn the 4 rings layer by layer, and there's the very interesting / weird / sickening vertical middle cut that you can do to mix pieces from the 1st layer with the 4th and the 2nd with the 3rd.

The objective... er... is to make something nice out of it!!! =) Because there's no fixed colour scheme, and there's probably no parity either (if you solve it my way), you can do anything you like with it! For me the "official" solved state is when all the black plastic pieces are on 1 side and the white plastic on the other, and pieces with same coloured stickers and different coloured plastic are opposite each other =)

Oh, and there're a few more interesting things about it:


1) The middle is a square!!!
2) If you put your finger on the edge and trace it (on the picture)... you get back to the origin!!! So you can also call it a "Mobius twisty puzzle"!!! Haha =)

Oh, before I forget, I actually popped the barrel by accident and broke a piece while trying to fix it back... but thankfully it didn't break at a place where there was a spring, so I managed to use, of all things, double-sided tape and masking tape, to hold it in place, and YAY, it works!!! Lucky I didn't waste $22 in a single moment of folly...

And then, another relatively new (or old) puzzle...


Void cube!!! This came to me from God. I mean, it's holy. You know, umm, I mean, "hole-y", haha =)

And contrary to popular belief, this cube is actually TOUGHER than a normal 3*3*3. Because you can get things like...

This... Oops, bad camera angle, take note of the face on the right...


Yes, you've guessed it (or you have not), it's PARITY!!! In other words, a cuber's nightmare haha =P Occurs primarily because you do not know the exact positions of where the holes should be. Ok, I'm doing a bad job explaining this. Anyway, many people would say something like "oh shit how did it happen, I didn't even dismantle it" and maybe throw it away or spoil it trying to pop the thing, and then... you waste $13.

And while you guys (and girls) enjoy all this... Hope "post-A-level entertainment 3" comes up soon!!! =)

~DK~

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Post-A-level entertainment 1

Lalala... the most active blogger here blogs again (you all should be sick of that mask by now)... Oh well, you all should know by now what I'm going to blog about... Yup, it's my new big toy!!! =)

Well, I'm supposed to be pretty happy. But then nearly everything went wrong with the order, I guess that company ie. "cubeforyou" sucks to the CORE (pun intended)... White becomes black, DIY kit becomes assembled toy, unstickered becomes stickered, unlubricated becomes lubricated... worse still, the stickering was done by machine, which means many stickers were stuck on misaligned... and the stickers were pretty low-class, so when i peeled them off to resticker them, some of them started peeling... see la, 厉害就厉害, 不要假厉害, told them not to sticker it and they didn't listen to me, think they are doing me a favour, now I got to redo so much... oh, i peeled off almost 200 stickers i think... gah... I guess the only thing they got right about my order was that I ordered a gigaminx.

Ok anyway, since A-levels is (virtually) over, and I wanted to find out why it JAMMEDlike CRAP, and curiosity got the better of me... I decided to dismantle the whole thing (which was why I bought it in the 1st place, I wanted the fun of assembling it) ... And since it was a DIY, I could easily pop the centre caps, unscrew it and PULL... then everything came out. YAY =)


PINK core =) Mmm, that's probably one of the very few things I liked about what I ordered from them...


And naturally... the rest of the disassembled gigaminx was a HUGE mess...


Which included 12 core pieces...


And each of their corresponding centre caps...

As well as 30 central edges...


60 wing edges...


60 corner centres...

60 middle centres...


And 20 corners!


Oh, and most importantly, the screws and springs!!! =)

And then I realized to my horror...
The pieces look nearly identical to my 7*7*7 cube pieces! And V-cube applied for copyright laws... Tsk tsk tsk, copycats, and yet the quality is so low compared to V-cubes...

Anyway, to make everything neater / more orderly / reduce the entropy of the system, I arranged everything nicely...
Definitely a lot more beautiful than I expected!!! =) 255 pieces of plastic and 24 pieces of metal put together, with 15 different colours ( stickers, core, plastic, metal, haha), and of course, even more pieces than a 7*7*7 cube!!! =)

And then, the tedious bit... fixing everything up. Sigh, itchy hands...

1 down, 11 to go...


2 down, 10 to go...

(After a long while) Done... screwing everything in...

And then it seems to follow the same order as solving a megaminx: bottom-layer star 1st...


1 down, 4 to go...

2 down 3 to go, BOOMZ, 0 down 5 to go, 1 down 4 to go, 2 down 3 to go, 3 down 2 to g0, BOOMZ, 2 down 3 to go, bla bla bla, bla bla bla, bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla...

Done with the star!



1 face done!


Did the same for an adjacent face...


2 faces done!

3 faces! Now it really looks like a real "face" staring at you, the mouth at the bottom, and the 2 eyes there...


4 faces!


DONE!!! Haha joking la...

Still got one face left...

Gigaminx cum food bowl? HAHA =P



One piece left...


Ah ha, now I'm really done!!! =)

I left the centre caps out on purpose, to adjust tension, stupid cubeforyou, the pieces are not molded to perfection (maybe it's more appropriate if I say that they are molded to imperfection), so they lock up MORE THAN ONCE PER TURN no matter how I set the tension, so I guess I'll just screw everything in very loosely so that at least it's easier to turn...

These days I'm solving it in about an hour's time haha, probably a long way to go to cut my times down, especially the horrible edge grouping, imagine grouping 30 edges, super frustrating... Anyway, enjoy the pictures!!! Especially the one where everything is laid out on paper =)

Oh, and as a last (and mostly irrelevant) note, remember to turn up in the hall on monday, 2pm, for your physics MCQ paper!!! Just in case you party too hard and forget about it =)

~DK~

Thursday, November 5, 2009

The 5th of November

"Remember, remember, the fifth of November, the gun powder treason and plot."
"I can think of no reason why the gun powder treason should ever be forgot."

That's all!!! Just to add a new post=)

~DK~

Friday, October 23, 2009

Graduation :)

Dear 6K,

Thanks for the many wonderful memories you've given me in these 2 years! Yesterday's Graduation Ceremony was really fun and I did not cry!! haha :) It was a pity that I could not sit together with the class, not even with the CCA leaders in our class... I'm sure you guys had lots of fun at the back of the hall, especially Jia Guang and Zhi Hui who were playing happily with the bears :p

I suppose the audience was really amazed by all the cubes in the video, as well as the part where Zhe Wei started writing the equation... It was really hilarious when Zhe Wei stared at the whiteboard and scratched his head :) Also the cubes with :) I <3 08S6K! were very impressive.. you can hear everyone go "WOW!" So thanks DK!! and THANK YOU JOEL for making such a wonderful video.. even though I kind of spoilt the fun earlier by doing something stupid... sorry for that :( Actually when the girls went off the stage, we wanted to stay there at first.. then Yuting said 走吧, so we didn't gather at the side... But then you guys stayed together after all and I wanted to join you all... but no time to run over :( Anyway, when all of you shouted WE LOVE YOU MRS LOH!, I was very surprised and happy!! I really didn't expect you guys to do it :)) The funny part was that the people around me (Fac Comm behind me) went like, "Wah, the voice sounded SO MANLY!" especially if you compare it with 6H.. Haha, well only the guys were shouting, so obviously it sounded very manly :) Of course, the climax of the whole ceremony was CAM-WHORING! A pity that Wei Yang left early... but we could still find a substitute :) Not to forget coming up with lame excuses to take photos with different people: PW groups, ILP groups, iSparkies, PRC group, all girls, non-ip etc :) Once again, THANK YOU 08S6K for the wonderful memories!!! I guess we wont forget one another that quickly.. We'll probably still have class gatherings ten years later.. haha! Btw, hope you all enjoyed reading the letter I wrote to each of you... I'm glad some of you find it heartwarming... :)

Somehow, today I feel like a normal JC 2 student... The reality is that we all still have to continue mugging and preparing for A levels.. Let's jiayou as a class and strive for the best so as not to let our tutors down! The partying can start once A levels end :)

Have a great weekend!

Monday, September 7, 2009

Holiday day 1...

Rawr I shall blog here before FF finishes his own post hahaha... And it's sickening to see that if i blog with the master account I get to edit HTML and stuff but I don't get the same privileges with my own email account... GAH...

Yup, let me delve into the past 1st haha... Actually, GP turned out to be a little better than expected (or so I think la, duno how our marker's gonna mark my essay, will he kill me for talking cock, or will he mark me high for using relevant examples...), and I think it's the same for quite a few of us, ESPECIALLY AFTER YUQUN TOLD EVERYBODY TO STUDY DEMOCRACY... I still can't believe it, he's so lucky... Or maybe that's because O-level students tend to be better at this kind of thing (mmm yet another flaw of IP HAHAHA)... In any case, I can't imagine the look on Mr Wong's face HAHAHA ("Zhe Wei, democracy?! Langston, democracy?! Mui Suan, Singapore?! Jia Guang, Singapore?! Yuqun, democracy?!"), and oh my gosh, all those who did democracy gonna get marked rather high "because of the use of news fresh of the papers" like the DPJ-thrash-LDP-and-ended-a-50-year-long-LDP-reign and whatsoever... Oh well, hail Hatoyama!!! For improving your GP grades HAHAHA =)

But ai ya, still died at the compre... summary looked rather difficult to paraphrase... And not sure whether to go for the details or go for the bird's eye view thingy (one's too short, one's too long, irritating)... And the AQ is... aiyoh... why must talk in Singapore context again... like I haven't smoked enough about Singapore in the essay like that... But, at least, thank god, the 1st writer had a very interesting argument smack in the middle of the passage... Something about teenagers becoming more mature BECAUSE THEY HAVE ACCESS TO ADULT MATERIAL!? He must be insane (unless of course, the GP department tweaked his arguments)!!! And so, with all the help from the compre that Mr Wong told us to do the day before, I managed to sieve that argument out and flame him for 1 page. Hahaha. Lucky I spent 6 hours on the AQ section of that practice compre (oops, sorry Mr Wong, I know I'm supposed to spend only 30 minutes...) trying to hone my skills on picking out arguments... Viewing adult material makes you more mature?! WOW... If that's true the police would be out of a job man... And very funny huh Yuqun, "religion will come out", tsk tsk tsk...

And then hmm, those evil souls (*nasty cackle*) who went out to enjoy themselves (of course la, GP's over leh) didn't tell me they were going to Vivo... and I passed by there on my way home alamak... wanted to find out what they were doing there actually... turns out they sort of went to toys r'us to... take a look at rubik's stuff? Sigh... Rubik's stuff not very good for speedsolving... Well, except 3*3*3 perhaps, so I gonna modify my cubes... And the toys r'us so dumb dumb one, got gold mirror blocks dowan to sell, sell only silver ones... Hmm well, which explains why Mui Suan bought a (fake-ish?) gold mirror blocks for me at Hougang mall haha, $10.90 some more, less than half the price of the one at toys r'us even after their so-called 20% discount... Bloody hell, why don't they stock up on the newest DIY gigaminxes or maybe megaminxes and pyraminxes? Now I need to go all the way to IMM to buy... And yea, IMM sells megaminxes for less than $20 hahaha, make your orders with me soon!!! =)

And then... Saturday... sigh... I realized that I wouldn't be sleeping at home if I'd done a little better for SMO sigh... o well, a gold medal is very good, but it would be better if I won some cash to "reduce my budget deficit" right? Sigh... Nevertheless, that night, I realized... Hwachong didn't win individual 1st in SMO Junior!!! Which makes me... the... last... Hwachongian... to... you know what I mean... And I can leave this school... with my record still intact *EVIL CACKLE* =)

Mmm, well GP's over, but econs is not over (and pretty imminent too), so well I'm compiling notes again... gah so many topics, and it's about 50 pages already... And I still need to compile information from tutorials sigh... so tedious... It's like...

I cannot finish...
Compiling my econs notes...
I still need to study physics (well, a bit)...
As well as some mathematics, and chemistry...

Oh damn it, oh damn it, oh damn it,
I can't complete compiling, compiling, compiling,
There's still so much to finish, to finish, to finish,
I gonna take forever, forever, forever...

Erm, sing in the tune of "I will follow him" and you know what I mean...

O well, I should go back to compiling econs... gah... and stop dreaming about megaminxes, 8*8*8, gigaminxes, and modify my cubes (Yea, I dreamt that I was playing 8*8*8 this morning)...

~DK~

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Reviving the Class Blog

I've been wanting to revive the blog since a looooooooooong time ago, but haven't found time to do so. And I wanted to do it last Thursday, blogger was down (or at least something was wrong with it and I couldn't type the post properly )

Ok, what should I write about?? I LOVE THE CLASS PAGE DESIGN!!! Pub I/C is really pro.. :) Wanted to upload it but decided not to lest other classes copy. But then again, who will want their class page to look like ours?? I think the SD managed to incorporate what is unique to our class in the design...

Which reminds me of another thing... OUR NON-EXISTENT CLASS VIDEO!! (I wonder if Mr Teo reads our blog...) anyway, I think we can include the class design into the video... One suggestion will be to make the names appear slowly one by one from the different faces of the KUBE... and then the KUBE appears! :) That will be abt 5s and can come in at the end of the video...

Oh the falling ceiling incident yesterday was really hilarious... I still chuckle at the thought of it.. Haha, I think Zhe Wei is really fortunate and who would have expected Mr Wong to have such an accurate prediction? Hope the estate office fill up the gaping hole asap...

Haha, I seriously think my brain juice flows better in the morning... so I should continue editing my PS now :)

Have a great weekend ahead!!

Saturday, August 8, 2009

What our national day song should be...

Mmm yup, while you guys continue mugging, I heard something on the news about Mr Brown coming with something creative... again... in the midst of H1N1 and national day... and seeing (or rather, hearing) that the national day song this year was rather horrible, here it is... Enjoy!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTnvqQFFc1c&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Emrbrownshow%2Ecom%2F&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTnvqQFFc1c&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Emrbrownshow%2Ecom%2F&feature=player_embedded

Saturday, July 11, 2009

A merciless world

From randomly stoning during today's yesterday's GP lesson:
skitched-66

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Curious and curiouser

Lamer makes her second public appearance!


hui min :D

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Good news, bad news

Rawr, long time no blog haha, and I think you all may be looking forward to something else other than tissue paper when you come here, and since monday is holiday / extra mugging day due to qing1 ming2 jie2, oh, er, I mean, qing1 nian2 jie2, let me try entertaining all of you a little before we sit for 2 more maddening papers... oh, ok, 2 subjects, FOUR maddening papers...

O ya, any comments here that may have insulted/humiliated/"niao"ed/"suan"ed anyone by accident, my sincere apologies to you, hehheh...

Good news: GP essay probably never go off-point! I mean, question 3, list 3 factors that bla bla bla, not so easy I think...

Bad news: Clean up nuclear waste? WTF?!

More bad news: Compre GG again, sorry Mr Wong, mission unaccomplished...

Good news: I finished econs!

Even better news: I wrote a lot!!! Relatively speaking...

Bad news: Evaluate the recommendations... monetary policy... er, it was explicitly NOT recommended, what's there to evaluate ah?

Good news: Wednesday day off!!!! And no more non-science and maths papers =)

Bad news: Accidentally ended up slacking...

More bad news: I didn't finish chem paper 3!!! *Evil grin*

Good news: Only need to do 3 questions out of 4! Ha ha, ha ha, HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Bad news: "AlCl3 dissociates in water to form acidic solution... bla bla bla... xxx --> yyy + OH- ..." oh no, how come it's basic... Mrs Tham gonna kill me...

Good news: Maths paper is next!!!

Bad news: Followed by physics paper 3 in the same day...

Good news: So far so good for maths! 1st 9 questions probably correct haha =P

Bad news: Physics paper 3 is bad for health... You know, smoking the whole paper away...

Good news: They never ask things like "who's the 1st person to discover that electricity and magnetism are related?"

Bad news: It's Hans Christian OERSTED, not Hans Christian ANDERSEN... Can imagine... "One day, Hansel and Gretel were walking in the forest and found a house who lived a witch who claimed she discovered that electricity and mangetism were related before locking them up and intending to use the 2 of them to generate AC and DC respectively..."

1 more thing: Stop arguing about North and South magnetic and geographic poles...

Good news: WEEKEND!!!

Bad news: Till I clear SMO 2nd round...

VERY GOOD NEWS: I SOLVED 2 QUESTIONS! I SOLVED 2 QUESTIONS! AFTER TRYING FOR 4 YEARS!!! YAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!

Bad news: I can't do geometry again... AND, there were 5 problems la...

Good news: I may get gold!!!

Bad news: "may" only la...

Good news: Monday is also holiday!!!

Bad news: Remind me still got chem and physics paper 1 and 2...

Last thing: "Wei Zhong, you never qualify for SMO Open 2nd round AGAIN ah?"

And don't use "Eh you didn't manage to solve a problem in 2nd round AGAIN ah" on me liao, that's history, HAHAHA XD

*DK*

Saturday, June 20, 2009

07,8,9S6K Outing

It's been a long time since I last posted. Anyway, I'm sure everyone had a wonderful time yesterday... even though after dinner, we didn't do much... (which also means that those who joined us for dinner didn't get to do much...)

Even though it rained slightly at 12pm, the afternoon rain did not dampen our spirits! After a hearty Leisurely Laksa Lunch at Alexandra Food Court, we headed to Hot (Hort) Park... We had such a fantastic time relishing our childhood memories that we delayed our trekking... :p And of course, with DK and Tze Han present, how can 6K possibly resist playing IN a gigantic polyhedra??? So we spent even more time playing at the park...


Finally, we decided to trek.... Thanks to Joel who suggested trekking, the few of us who trekked yesterday definitely had a good workout :) Playing Trrrruth or Truth (junior Xinyi, I hope u get it now) was FUN!!! Who would have known that Zhi Hui's first crush was actually in primary school, or that Joel is a love guru who can explain the different stages of falling in love and the subtle difference between a crush and an infatuation. Most importantly, esp to TJH's harems out there, his ideal age to get married is 27 and a happy family with 3 kids :)

We took abt 3 hours to trek from HortPark to Vivocity, making numerous stops at the various fitness stations along the way (all because of a certain Health and Fitness Club member) but we enjoyed working out at the stations too :))) Along Henderson Waves, everyone got tired... The cool breeze definitely cooled us down... we simply decided to stop and rest longer there. In fact, we realised that it was a perfect spot to star gaze and even considered getting the class to meet us there instead....

At around 5.30pm, we eventually had to continue trekking so as to meet the class PUNCTUALLY AT 6PM (*coughs*) at Vivocity.... and of course to enjoy the aircon after spending about 6 hours in the sun... A pity Tze Han couldn't join us for dinner... but thanks Yong Lin, Yi Tyan and Huang Pei for joining us!!! As usual, after one hour of waiting (*coughs again*), dinner started. Another hour later, dinner ended and everyone tried to find something to do. Finally, after one more hour of slacking and doing nothing (or trying to test Yi Tyan more A level stuff), we decided to pack up and go home (to mug). But obviously, ppl like the President, Champion, DK and BlahKing didn't have to worry abt mugging since they happily went to the arcade at 9pm for more games!!!

Ultimately, I hope everyone had fun :) and it's not often we have a 3-generations gathering. All the best for blocks for 08 & 9S6K, as well as happy uni prep/army life for 07S6K!!!

Monday, June 15, 2009

SMO: How stupidity cancels out ingenuity... again

Ok, since the welfare rep has kindly requested me to do so, and I'm getting too sick of mugging, and the 2nd round is coming, it pays to jian2 tao3 a bit before I try to get a gold for the last time...

1) 12560, verified with GC (YAY! I'm correct)
cos 30 you can evaluate yourself, then you multiply the expression by cos 10 divided by cos 10, then you realize a lot of stuff you can use double angle formula to simplify and cancel out! =)

2) 54 (correct again!)
I call the centre of circle K! K for 6K! haha =) Then angle a1a3a5 = 0.5 * angle a1Ka5 = angle a1Ka6 = 180 degrees - angle a2Ka3 - angle a3ka4 (because of all the equal arcs and stuff) = 180 degrees - angle a2Ka4 = 180 degrees - 2 angle a2a6a4 = 72 degrees. So the answer is 54 degrees.

3) 2009 (you might have guessed it!)
This 1 is plain steward's theorem, which states that APi^2 + PiB*PiC = AB*AC=49 for i=1,2,..., 41. So the sum is 49*41 = (guess what?) 2009.

4) 8, verified with GC (hehheh!)
Erm... note that (2x^2+6x-56) - (x^2-11x+24) = (x^2+17x-80). So you can let (x^2-11x+24) = A, (x^2+17x-80) = B, (2x^2+6x-56) = A+B, then you get stuff like A + A+B = B, then you play around with whether A is negative of B is negative and A>B and god knows what and your solution should be 8. Btw the graphic calculator tells me that equality holds for 0<=x<=8 then it's a strictly increasing function after that.

And as I type this LA has just beaten the crap out of Orlando at Amway Arena... AGAIN... for their 15th championship title... SIGH...

5) 1742, verified with graphmatica (Argh read question wrongly...)
Translate f(x) 2006 units to the left and call it g(x). Then g(x) is a power 5 polynomial whose x^5 coefficient is also 7. AND, g(-2) = 72, g(-1) = -30, g(0) = 32, g(1) = -24, g(2) = 24. Then introduce h(x) = g(x) - 7x^5. Then h(x) is a power 4 polynomial. AND, h(-2) = 296, h(-1) = -23, h(0) = 32, h(1) = -31, h(2) = -200. Then use silly silly "method of common defferences" and you get h(3) = 41, which means f(2009) is 1742.

6) 2, verified with GC (goddamnit i can't do this 1)
Double angle formula, triple angle formula, you name it, I use it.
(sin80/sin20) - [(sqrt3)/(2 sin80)]
=[cos 10/(2 sin10 cos10)] - (cos30/cos10)
=1/(2 sin10) - (4 cos^3 10 - 3 cos 10)/cos 10
=1/(2 sin10) - 4 cos^2 10 + 3
=(1 - 8 sin 10 cos^2 10 + 6 sin 10)/(2 sin10)
=[1 - 8 sin 10 (1 - sin^2 10) + 6 sin 10]/(2 sin10)
=(1 - 8 sin 10 + 8 sin^3 10 + 6 sin 10)/(2 sin10)
=(1 + 8 sin^3 10 - 2 sin 10)/(2 sin10)
=(2 sin 30 + 8 sin^3 10)/(2 sin10) - 1
=(6 sin 10 - 8 sin^3 10 + 8 sin^3 10)/(2 sin10) - 1
=3 - 1 = 2

7) 128? Anyone wants to check? By listing... *evil grin*
Compare the number formed when a is removed and when b is removed. Write them out in standard notation form (10 to the power of duno duno what). Then you get a=b (mod 7). Then you do the same for b and c. Then b=c (mod 7), with the help that 7 is a prime. Then you go on, and you get a=b=c=d=e=f=g=h (mod 7). In this scenario, any 6-digit number formed by a,...,h is divisible by 7. Just whack and see. So, say for the number abcdefg (h is removed) to be divisble by 7, since bcdefg is divisible by 7, a must be divisible by 7. SO, a=b=c=d=e=f=g=h=0 (mod 7). Then b,...,h = 0 or 7, and a = 7 since a cannot be 0. So total number of integers = 2^7 = 128.

8) 500, approximately verified by GC
Eh... Not sure what happened, I think i got the wrong side of the inequality using cauchy-schwarz, but the answer is still there... Anyway, i have (a-5b)(1-0.2)>=(sqrt a - sqrt b)^2, so a-5b>=500, inequality sign is the wrong way...

9) 224, approximately verifiesd by geometer sketchpad (OMG i guessed it)
Ya, I guessed it, so don't ask me for how I did it...

10) 2009 (Yes, again...)
I just denote cube root of 209 by k. Then x = 0.5 (k-1/k). Then x^2 = 0.25 (k-1/k)^2. Then 1 + x^2= 1 + 0.25 (k-1/k)^2 = 0.25 (k^2 + 1/k^2 - 2 + 4) = 0.25 (k+1/k)^2. Then sqrt (1+x^2) = 0.5 (k+1/k). The rest is easy.

11) 82215?
There are 3 scenarios: x < y < z < w, y < x < z < w, y < z < x < w. So for each scenario you can pick 4 elements from S, order does not matter cos it will be fixed by that inequality. So answer is 30C4 * 3 = 82215.

12) 38889? not sure if the final answer I put was this, i kept changing...
If you count the zeros in front of numbers that have less than 5 digits, then you have 100000 5-digit numbers, so there are 500000 digits, so by symmetry (i cheated) there are 50000 zeros. Then from 00000 to 09999 the 1st zero is not counted. So you minus off 10000. Then from 00000 to 00999 the 2nd zero is not counted, so you minus off 1000. Then you keep doing it, and you will get 50000-10000-1000-100-10-1 = 38889.

13) 96, should be confirmed... GRAHHHHHH
If k is a multiple of 3, since squares = 0 or 1 (mod 3), x^2-ky^2=8 has no integer solutions. So maximum value of k is 99, and k = 3 has no integer solutions. When k=1, x=3 ,y=1. When k=2, x=20,y=14. So minimum value of k is 3. So answer is 99-3 =96.

14) I'm guessing 21845, any other answers?

15) 4021, should be confirmed =)
Letting y=0 gives f(x)f(0) = f(3) + 6x.
Letting x=0 gives f(0)f(y) = f(3) + 3f(y) - 3f(0), following which letting y=x gives f(0)f(x) = f(3) + 3f(x) - 3f(0).
So 6x = 3f(x) - 3f(0), which gives f(x) = 2x + f(0), which gives f(3) = 6 + f(0),
Letting x=y=0 gives f(0)^2 = f(3).
So f(0)^2 - f(0) - 6 =0, which gives f(0) = 3 or -2, which gives f(x) = 2x + 3 or 2x - 2.
Sub back into original equation, f(x) = 2x - 2 does not work, so f(x) = 2x+3. So f(2009) = 4021.

16) 89970, should be confirmed =)
After some silly trial and error, we guess that A(n+1) = (2008+n)A(n). WHICH WORKS! So A993 = (2008+992)(2008+991)A991. So A993/(100A991) = 3000*2999/100 = 89970.

17) Anyone tried this 1?

18) 11440, tentatively confirmed (OMG I FORGOT TO DIVIDE 16 BY 4!!!!!)
Consider the act of putting 7 slots in between 15 balls, where extreme ends of the balls can also have slots placed there. After which, remove 1 ball from in between each slot, so that there are 9 balls left, with 7 slots in between. Let each digit be represented by no. of balls on the left side of each slot. So answer is 16C7=11440.

19) 127, should be confirmed =)
a^n - 1 can always be factorized into (a-1)(something something something). So for the number to be prime, a-1 must be = 1, so a = 2. Since 2^13 - 1 = 8191>5000, 2^12 - 1 = 4095 which is divisible by 5, 2^11 - 1 = 2047 which is 23*89, 2^10 - 1 = 1023 which is divisible by 3, 2^9 - 1 = 511 which is 7*73, 2^8 - 1 = 255 which is 3*5*17, and 2^7 - 1 = 127 which is a prime, the answer is 127.

20) 1005?
Cheat and whack, M looks like it's constant at 1004.5.

21) 56, tentatively confirmed (oh man, may the earth swallow me up, no time to finish this 1...)
Consider how many ways there are so that no 3 numbers are consecutive.
Case 1: 3 blocks of 2 numbers.
39 balls unpicked, 40 places to slot these 3 blocks, so no. of ways = 40C3 = 9880.
Case 2: 2 blocks of 2 numbers, 2 blocks of 1 number.
No. of ways = 40C2 * 38C2= 548340.
Case 3: 1 block of 2 numbers, 4 blocks of 1 number.
No. of ways = 40C1 * 39C4= 3290040.
Case 4: 6 blocks of 1 number.
No. of ways = 40C6= 3838380 (wow)
Total possible ways to pick 6 balls = 45C6 = 8145060
So p = 1 - (9880+548340+3290040+3838380)/8145060 = 0.0562819672....
So floor value of 1000p = 56.

22) 1, should be confirmed (I'll never ever forget that tan^-1 (infinity) is PI/2, not ZERO! ARGHHHHHHHHHHH)
tan^-1 [2/(2k+1)^2] = tan^-1 (2k+2) - tan^-1 (2k) (Try it yourself, it works). So sum of something something something = (2/pi) [tan^-1 (infinity) - tan^-1 (0)] = (2/pi) (pi/2 - 0) = 1.

23) 263, confirmed by GC (Ahhhhhh..... i just made a fool of myself... again...)
Don't know the general formula for this sum? Lazy to find out? Try... WHACKING!
11^5+10^5+9^5+8^5+7^5+6^5+5^5+4^5+3^5+2^5+1^5
= 161051+100000+59049+32768+16807+7776+3125+1024+243+32+1
= 381876 = 2^2 * 3 * 11 ^2 * 263.

24) 15, confirmed by GC (sigh...)
X(n+2) = 0.25 X(n+1) + 0.75 X(n) , ...................... So,
X(n+2) + X(n+1) +...+X(3) = 0.25 X(n+1) + X(n) + X(n-1) +...+ X(2) + 0.75 X(1).
So X(n+2) + 0.75 X(n+1) = X(2) + 0.75 X(1) = 24 + 3*3/4 = 105/4.
As n goes to infinity, X(n+2) approximates X(n+1) approximates X(n), so X(n) approaches (105/4) / (1 + 3/4) = 15.

25) Who wants to do this 1? Opportunity cost for getting the correct answer is 20 years of your life...

Hmm... that's about 12 or 13 correct... team award? As much chance as Newcastle playing in EPL next season *evil cackle to mister mugging for IChO*...

Yup, that's all!

DK

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Chairman Mao's famous words

Saw this at Outram MRT during JTS... haha reminds me of the 6K induction test.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

The Odd Ball

Hope everyone enjoyed THE ODD BALL yesterday... haha, a pity not everyone dressed oddly... but at least the junior class made the effort to dress up :)

And of course, all hail our new Fac Prince Willie Wee and Fac Princess Weng Jue!!!btw, i think wear red underwear really brings u good luck...

anyway, some 08s6K photos... more photos on Facebook. plus the exciting video of how the President tries to make Yuqun look odd...




haha.... should include these dunking photos in class montage :)

also, who's the person beside Jian Hua in this photo? Is it Yuqun? Pretty scary...

Have fun!!!