The Bailey Challenge

BY PROFESSOR EMERITUS

HERB BAILEY

C I sincerely thank all the solvers who passed along your stories about how my father, Herb Bailey, touched your lives. (See sidebar on this page.) He enjoyed his time at Rose-Hulman because of the students that he had the privilege to teach. Developing mathematics problems that people wanted to solve brought great joy into his life. Thank you very much. For those who didn’t have my father in class, my father would announce at a very important point during a lecture that it is “double star wake-up time.” So, it’s “double star wake-up time,” with the following problems. Mark Bailey, Chemical Engineering, 1976

WINTER PROBLEM 1

Professor Bailey designed a 24-question test on which he hoped to discourage guessing. When the test was graded, a student received five points for each correct answer and lost seven points for each incorrect answer. Stu took the test, answered every question, and scored 0. How many problems did he answer correctly? WINTER PROBLEM 2

A woman with a basket of eggs finds that if she removes the eggs from the basket either two, three, four, five, or six at a time, there is always one egg left. However, if she removes the eggs seven at a time, there are no eggs left. If the basket holds up to 500 eggs, how many eggs does the woman have?

A 15° WINTER BONUS PROBLEM

The length of segment AD in the figure is equal to the length of segment DB. Find the measure of angle a.

45°

D

Note: The figure is not to scale

B

SUMMER PROBLEM SOLUTIONS PROBLEM 1: 1,600 pounds PROBLEM 2: 36π BONUS PROBLEM: 15 miles/hour

Send your solution to BaileyChallenge@rose-hulman.edu or to: Dale Long, CM 14, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, 5500 Wabash Ave., Terre Haute, IN 47803. Alumni should include their class year.

Congratulations to the following solvers of the spring problems: ALUMNI: T. Jones, 1949; D. Camp, 1955; A. Sutton, 1956; C. Corbin, 1957; D. Bailey, 1959; W. Perkins, 1960; R. Checkley, 1961; L. Hartley, 1961; R. Lovell, 1963; D. Moore, 1964; S. James, 1965; R. Kevorkian, 1966; J. Lafuze, 1967; R. Dutton, 1969; S. Jordan, 1970; S. Boyce, 1971; D. Jordan, 1971; R. LaCosse, 1971; W. Pelz, 1971; S. Sample, 1971; H. Young, 1972; R. Kominiarek, 1973; T. Rathz, 1974; R. Herber, 1975; J. Turner, 1975; B. Hunt, 1976; P. Monhaut, 1978; R. Priem, 1979; J. Slupesky, 1979; J. Koechling, 1980; P. Gunn, 1981; B. Lonnberg, 1981; S. Nolan, 1981; R. Roll, 1981; M. Taylor, 1982; B. Downs, 1983; S. Hall, 1983; K. Shafer 1983; G. Swinehart, 1983; N. Cutaia, 1988; Chris Abdnour, 1989; Joe Jachim, 1989; S. Barndt, 1990; G. Smith, 1990; B. Burger, 1991; B. Heinz, 1991; R. Hochstetler, 1991; C. Schlimm, 1991; R. Antonini, 1993; K. Ojala, 1998; K. Beto, 2000; R. Barton, 2001; B. Hirsch, 2004; T. Homan, 2007; J. Krall, 2007; D. Straub, 2010; G. Madinger, 2013; B. Wern, 2014, and R. Wern, 2017. FRIENDS/STUDENT: C. Bailey, S. Bartling, D. Bremmer, J. Bruner, T. Cutaia, W. De Veirman, G. Gstattenbauer, M. Hilgert, L. Metcalfe, J. Marks, D. Roberts, E. Robertson, J. Robertson, Bob Schoumacher, J. Walsh, and J. Walter.

“It was sad to hear the Herb has passed, but good to know that his legacy will be continued with this Challenge … I really enjoyed knowing Herb, both on campus as a student and then later as a loyal follower, stimulated by the joy of solving his quarterly challenges. Mark, these (summer) problems were on par with your dad’s standards: cute and interesting, not too hard, but not too easy.” – Rich Priem (ME/MA/CS, 1979) “I have enjoyed trying to solve these problems over the years. I have sent in solutions many times over the past. Often, I would describe the process or equations I used and several times I scanned a copy of my scribblings in solving the problem (hoping for partial credit). At times [Bailey] would make comments on my solutions and a few times when I messed up, he might tell me to recheck a certain assumption I may have made.” – Steve Nolan (ME, 1981) “My only correspondence with [Bailey] was through this challenge and in our communication, it was easy to observe his love of mathematics. I fondly remember excitedly sending in my first solutions years ago and him sending a quick message back asking for me to show my work. At the time I was teaching middle school mathematics and I laughed at receiving exactly what I would’ve told my students!” – Tony Homan (CPE, 2007) “Thank you for continuing your dad’s legacy, Mark. What a great way to keep him in all our minds. For me, he made Probability and Statistics (class) more understandable than I expected. More recently, one of his problems showed me that if plane geometry doesn’t work, think in spherical coordinates.” – Rick Roll (1981, EVE/CE) “Many thanks for continuing the tradition and legacy of the Bailey Challenge. Although I rarely submitted solutions, I always enjoyed them, even when they drove me crazy. We will all miss Herb.” – John Turner (CS/MA, 1975) “Although I was before his time at Rose, I greatly admired [Bailey’s] dedication to Rose and alumni.” – David Bailey (CE, 1959) “Of all the things in Echoes, the Bailey Challenge was ALWAYS the one thing I would read. Thanks for continuing the tradition.” – Joe Jachim (EE, 1989)

SCHOLARSHIP SUPPORTING FUTURE PROBLEM SOLVERS

Herb Bailey’s family has established a scholarship fund to support the development of future problem solvers to attend the Operation Catapult summer program. Donations can be made at www.rose-hulman.edu/give (Designate Herb Bailey Scholarship in “Other” gift category).