Big Merton 1264 Challenge
August 12th, 2020
At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and lock-down in the UK, Merton College (where I studied for my MSc in 2016-17) started the Big Merton 1264 Challenge, to raise funds for the Merton Hardship Fund and Oxford Mutual Aid. The College inspired many to keep active at that time, taking on challenges like running or walking 12.64 km, or for 1.26 hrs, for example. Many ingenious contributions were made: cakes were backed, games were played, crochet stitches were stitched (yes, 1264 of them - 9.4 meters long!).
On the other hand, likely inspired by all the tweaking and shuffling-around with the digits of “1264” (12.64 km, 1.26hrs, 126 push-ups, a model of 12+64 DUPLO pieces …), the thoughts which occurred to me were the following: what would all possible computations on the digits {1,2,6,4} look like? How many are there? Can they be constructed?
Well, I dare say it’s about time I share the answers I found on this topic, as the Challenge was extended to May 31st 2020, and it is now early August. Indeed, I have done the fairly straightforward calculations of how many such computations are possible, depending on what mathematical operations are to be used. I have done this, and more, in the computer algebra system (CAS) Wolfram Mathematica; very powerful software that allows mathematicians to use computers to answer non-numerical questions that would take a very long time to work out by hand. Available below is both a Mathematica Notebook file, for any interested fellow mathematicians who have access to Mathematica and would like to play with the code directly, as well as a PDF document of the same Notebook file, for hopefully universal reading otherwise. Through this project, I have come to appreciate, more then ever before, the facility of the Mathematica Notebook format to allow for description and exposition of mathematical ideas and arguments, right in and around working Mathematica code.
Without further ado, I hope you enjoy this little mathematical excursion