SUMS: White -- How to get ANY number using four 4s

Hello everyone,

Sorry for the late email guys, but over at the maths department we seem to 
have a shortage of people who aren’t sick. Which not only makes it hard to 
discuss things with your executive committee (who all seem to have the same 
illness, isn’t sharing fun?), but only makes arranging talks complicated.

So, in order to guarantee a talk for this week, we’ll be hearing from 
someone who never seems to get sick. Me. Yeah that’s right, how come you 
guys get all the fun anyway? No "get well soon" letters for poor old Gareth. 
Oh well.

Anyway, this Friday I will be talking about an amusing puzzle that I 
remember from my childhood (and maybe yours’ too, unless of course you had a 
life...) We’ll be looking at the four 4s puzzles. If you haven’t seen it 
before, basically you need to use the digit 4 four times (as well as 
mathematical operations) to create as many integers as you can (usually the 
integers from 0 to 100). I’ll be talking about the puzzle, the rules (in 
particular which operations are allowed), common techniques for getting 
different integers, tricky numbers which are hard to find solutions for, as 
well as the opportunity to win money!!!

Talk: How to get ANY number using four 4s
Speaker: Gareth White
Location: Carslaw 452
Date/Time: Friday September 5, 1-2pm

Also, as I said at the start of the semester I will be running a maths relay 
later on this semester. It will probably be in either Week 9 or Week 10, and 
may not be on a Friday, depending on when people are available. It will be a 
team event of course. I haven’t got many more details but I just wanted to 
give everyone a heads up so that they know it’s coming up. There will be 
prizes so it is definitely worth considering!

Take care,
Gareth

"I think that gay marriage should be between a man and a woman." - Arnold 
Schwarzenegger