Sunday, April 18, 2010

The number 1729

The blog I started to share few of mathematical techniques and puzzles that I learned. It is honor to start with a puzzle discovered by the genius Ramanujan.

In 1917, Ramanujan became seriously ill. He was incorrectly diagnosed with tuberculosis; later, it was confirmed vitamin deficiency. When Ramanujan was sick, Prof. Hardy visited him. Hardy told him that the number of the cab he came in, 1729, was a "dull number" and he hoped that it wasn't a bad omen. "No, sir," Ramanujan replied. "It is a very interesting number. It is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways". How would you find them?

Hint: Use your personal computer and basic C language constructs. How the genius did ensured that the number was smallest under the mentioned conditions?

Some one coined, every prime number is personal friend of Ramanajun.

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