NU Splash Biography

Join us as we solve some of the deepest and most challenging puzzles around. These puzzles, seen in competitions such as the MIT Mystery Hunt, require careful analysis and deep logic, and they’re often given without any instructions! We’ll go through a sample of these puzzles and try to work through them together. Stretch your brain and grow your skills for finding deep patterns, examining open-ended questions, and pulling out solutions without nearly enough information.

In 1874, the mathematician Georg Cantor first came up with the profound ideas that led to “transfinite numbers.” His insights allowed mathematicians to look at precisely what infinity means, to work with it, to understand exactly what they can do with this improbable concept. Now we can answer questions such as “when are two infinite collections of objects the same size?” We can understand how to compare the infinite set consisting of all integers with the infinite set consisting of all rational numbers (all fractions). And we can determine just how many sizes of infinity there are. Be prepared to have all your preconceptions thrown out the window in a challenging math class.