The Big Merton 1264 Challenge - Thank You!

Alumnus Ben Slocock (1982) who has come up with 12 mathematical identities using the digits 1 2 6 and 4 just once each:

1 x 2 = 6 – 4
2 ÷ 1 = 6 – 4
21 = 6 - 4
6 – 2 = 4 x 1
6 – 2 = 4 ÷ 1
6 – 2 = 4¹
4 + 2 = 6 x 1
4 + 2 = 6 ÷ 1
4 + 2 = 6¹
16 = 2⁴
16 = 4²
(4 + 1 – 2)! = 6

and, more Countdown style, some results using those digits only to reach 1264:

1264 = 16 x (2⁴(4 +1 ) – 1)

1264 = 2⁶ (6 + 4) - 2⁴

1264 = (2 x 6!) – (2⁴ x (1 + 4 + 6))

Ben says: "I’m sure current mathematicians can find some more interesting ones" - any takers?

To find out what they show follow The Big Merton 1264 Challenge on Facebook or see our Twitter feed

Undergraduate Phoebe Mountain went for a 12.6 km-run.

Saturday 23

It was a May morning. The young girl was sitting in the Library with her tablet. She had to write a story, about: “Merton quadrangles and sustainability”. But what did THAT mean? She had no idea.
Suddenly her eyes fell on a picture of a little hare on the wall. It had been put there hundreds of years ago. The hare was in a field full of flowers. “What should I write?” the girl murmured. The hare, to her amazement, suddenly hopped off the wall. “Follow me”, it said. Off it went, past the old bookcases, down the stairs.
Out it shot across a field & into another field, called Stubbins Quad. “This field has no meadow flowers any more” said the hare. “Just grass. When I was young, clover, red and white, celandines, ladies’ fingers, buttercups, harebells, daisies with pink edges to their petals, cowslips, grew here”.
“And something else: look up at those mullioned windows. In that room in Stubbins Quad, on summer days, Nigel & Prisca read poems out loud & made hitch-hiking plans; long ago, that was”.
“Mmm”, mused the girl, slowly. “You know, we could, at least, bring back the flowers”. Come with me, little hare, back to the Library. I know now what I’ll write”.
And so it was. The hare hopped back onto the wall tile. And the girl sat & wrote.

Alumnus Jonathan Tot (2017) began making a calculation of all possible computations on 4 inputs: 1, 2, 6 and 4.

UPDATE - 18 August:

"Needless to say, this is heavily belated, but I have finally concluded a small mathematical investigation, which I undertook at the impetus of the 1264 Challenge.  While others were variously running, walking, or generally keeping active (any of which would have done me some good, to be sure) - rather, the thought which occurred to me was: What would all the computations on the digits {1,2,6,4} be?  How many different calculations are there?

While perhaps not completely exhausted, I have obtained some answers to these questions, among others, and I am comfortable now to share the conclusions.  Obviously, this project has involved a little bit of coding, which I have completed in the computer algebra system (CAS) Wolfram Mathematica.  What I have been able to prepare, in order to share this inquiry, is a document in PDF format that describes the structures used to answer such questions. During this, I have learned that a Mathematica Notebook is a very effective format to present textual explanation in and around the code, in a very readable format.  I hope what I have written will be accessible to a fairly general audience.  Available as well, for the more mathematically inclined (those who have access to Mathematica, in particular), is the notebook file itself, so you may extract or modify the code, should you so desire.
https://www.jonathantot.com/projects.

I hope you enjoy!"

Alumnus Keith Burton (1962), "one of those nerdy stamp collectors", challenged himself to sort out 1,264 of the large number of postage stamps he has "in unsorted piles, boxes and books ... so that I know what they are and where they are."

UPDATE: Keith (on the late shift) reports that he has sorted his 1,264 stamps, finishing at 00:42 on Bank Holiday Monday, 25 May. "Sadly there were many duplicates so there is the question of whether or not they should count. This judge says “Yes” but now suggests that he tries for 1,264 different stamps – 770 so far. 594 more 'new' ones before Thursday seems unlikely. Got a couple of crosswords to do, and the garden calls as well in bright ? - best wishes to all you athletic types – as a mathematician (of sorts) counting is more my game."

The following day he followed up with this:

"Although I put it down to the enervating weather, my wife suggests that the modest response to my #1264Challenge riddles is due to my obscure reasoning following an Oxford education, compounded by the sense of unreality common among those of us who matriculated in 1968.

"For instance," she said, "you haven't given them any clues." I replied that they were at Merton and wouldn't need clues. She said: "Well, you haven't given them any questions either."

Perhaps that was an oversight and if so, I will now put it right with quite an easy one to start with and the others getting more difficult:

• Geography: why Malden?
• History: Fill in the missing word: 'The club is typically ......... in that its members are usually vague and misinformed about its history.'
• PPE: Why might the Government have been advised to seek advice from New Malden at an earlier stage of the pandemic?
• Art: Who is the soap advertiser and for whom and what is his connection with this?
• English Literature: How has Ophelia changed and which quatrain of WH Auden's might apply (given a change of gender)?
• Mathematics: which inspired member of the SCR might possibly, indeed probably, have designed the curving platform roofs of New Malden railway station?
• And finally Medicine: what do the Warden of Merton and the Principal of Malden have in common?

Good luck! And the offer of a pint stands"