March 1... It was on March 1st in 1896 that Henri Becquerel (that's not him at the top) discovered radioactivity, at least according to Wikipedia. I imagine if he had looked ahead fifty years he might have kept his discovery a secret. By a strange twist of fate, it was also on March 1st in 1950 that the US convicted Klaus Fuchs for spying for the Soviet Union and disclosing top secret information about the atomic bomb.
Then, only four years later, on March 1st of 1954, we detonate the Castle Bravo, a 15-megaton hydrogen bomb on Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean . The result was the worst radioactive contamination ever caused by the United States.
Okay, not the kind of thing you want to think about? How about diverting your mind with a quick problem. Can you solve ...
Oops, almost forgot. It's World Math Day also...
What do you mean "first two solutions"? There is only one solution (an ellipse). If you treat each point on the ellipse as a different solution there is no ordering of them. Or did you mean the first points that occur to you, which are probably (1,0) and (-1,0)?
ReplyDeleteWhat do you mean "first two solutions"? There is only one solution (an ellipse). If you treat each point on the ellipse as a different solution there is no ordering of them. Or did you mean the first points that occur to you, which are probably (1,0) and (-1,0)?
ReplyDeleteSorry Gas.., I thought it would be clear from Pell's name that I was looking for integer solutions where x and y are both >0... and just as a aside, I think you must have meant a hyperbola rather than ellipse.
ReplyDeleteFor example 3,2 will work and is the smallest pair of non-negative integers (I hope) that work.
I should have been more clear in the question.... mia culpa
I checked is 2y^2 + 1 a perfect square for a few numbers before encountering the second solution. Is there a way to directly generate solutions?
ReplyDeleteJonathan
Jonathon,
ReplyDeleteI'm missing something... if 2y^2 + 1 is a perfect square, then it is a solution...