Idaho Society of Professional Engineers
Friday Update - 01/16/04
UPCOMING EVENTS:
● NSPE 2004 Winter Meeting, January 15-19,
2004, Washington, DC
● ISPE Legislative Affairs Committee
Meeting via teleconference, January 21, 2004, contact Jeff Block,
jdblock@imbris.net, or Mike Delles,
mdelles@kleinfelder.com for more
information
● ASCE January Meeting, Noon, Thursday,
January 22, 2004, MK Plaza - Executive Dining Room, Presentation: Chris
Canfield, Idaho Transportation Department, District 3, Topic Wye Interchange
Reconstruction Project. For more information contact Ryan Adelman at
radelman@kellerassociates.com
● ISPE Southwest Chapter 2004 Engineers
Week Luncheon, February 5, 2004, 11:30 am, Boise Spectrum Hilton Garden Inn,
Boise, Speaker - Idaho Transportation Department Director, David Ekern, PE..
Registration information can be found on the ISPE web site at
http://home.rmci.net/ispe/eweek_lunch.htm, or contact the ISPE office at
208-426-0636.
● ISPE 2004 Annual Convention, February 5 -
7, 2004 at the Hilton Garden Inn, Boise. Detailed information about the meeting
can be found on the ISPE web site at
http://home.rmci.net/ispe/2004_annual_meeting.htm, or contact the ISPE
office at 208-426-0636.
● ISPE Northern Chapter MATHCOUNTS
Competition - Lewiston - February 7, 2004
● ISPE Northern Chapter MATHCOUNTS
Competition - Coeur d'Alene - February 10, 2004
● ISPE Southeast Chapter MATHCOUNTS
Competition - Pocatello - February 21, 2004
● ISPE Southwest Chapter MATHCOUNTS
Competition - Boise - February 21, 2004
● ISPE Magic Valley Chapter MATHCOUNTS
Competition - February 24, 2004
● ISPE State MATHCOUNTS Competition - Boise
- March 6, 2004
● NSPE 2004 Convention and Expo, July 8 -
10, 2004, Honolulu, Hawaii
Here is a fun opportunity to contribute to
your community
The Idaho Science Olympiad is looking for people to help judge their competition
at NNU (Northwest Nazarene University) this April 3rd. The Science Olympiad is a
national competition for Jr. and Sr. high students. The Science Olympiad puts
science and engineering into a competitive team environment and has inspired
many students to pursue careers in Science and Engineering. Idaho Science
Olympiad alumni are now on scholarships at MIT, U of I and The Air Force Academy
.
Volunteers are asked to work from a couple hours to the whole day (8:00 AM to
3:00 PM). The events where we need help include Rockets, Rube Goldberg machines,
Robots, Catapults, Pictionary, Destructive testing of bridges and towers, Egg
Drop, Cars and Airplanes. If you have a child in the 6th through 12th grade, we
still have openings for teams. East, North, Les Bois, Timber Line and Bishop
Kelly are among the two dozen teams signed up already.
If you are interested in volunteering, or for more information, please contact
Gary Carlson, gary.carlson@hp.com,
396-2814
More information is also at the National Web site at www.soinc.org
Congratulations to ISPE President Karen Doherty. She has become
the first Idaho member to sponsor two or more new members as part of the
"Give Back: Get Back"
program. Any NSPE member who sponsors two or more new or reclaimed, full-paying
Licensed Members and/or Members between October 3, 2003, and March 31, 2004,
will receive their 2004-05 NSPE national membership for FREE!
MATHCOUNTS PROBLEM OF THE WEEK
Can you solve this MATHCOUNTS problem? The answer will appear in next week's
edition of the Friday Update!
Take A Look At The Fax
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a record-breaking fine of
$5.4 million to a company for sending junk-faxes. The company in question (which
well call Company X) was fined the maximum $11,000 for each of its violations.
Approximately how many violations did Company X allegedly commit? Express your
answer to the nearest ten.
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The five-member FCC formally voted to assess the fine mentioned above. Assuming
that in order for the fine to have been assessed, at least three members would
have had to vote Yes, in how many ways could the vote-record have turned out?
For example, if the five members were labeled A, B, C, D and E, one possible
vote-record is A-Yes, B-Yes, C-Yes, D-No and E-No.
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One complaint against Company X was that it sent a law firm approximately 1500
faxes in a three-hour period. What was the average rate of incoming faxes in
faxes per minute? Express your answer as a decimal to the nearest tenth.
Answer to last week's problem:
If we break 2004 into its prime factorization, we see 204 = 22 Χ 31 Χ 1671. To
determine the number of total factors, we increase each of the exponents in the
prime factorization by 1 and multiply these new numbers: (2 + 1)(1 + 1)(1 + 1) =
12 total factors.
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The first 2004 positive integers are 1, 2, 3,
, 2002, 2003, and 2004. Notice we
can pair up the numbers in this list by folding the list in half so that the
last number matches with the first, the second-to-last matches with the second,
the third-to-last matches with the third, and so on until the middle two numbers
(1002 and 1003) are paired together. Notice that the sum of each pair of numbers
is 2005 and there are 1002 total pairs. We can now calculate that the sum of all
of the 2004 integers is 1002(2005) = 2,009,010. Can you find a formula that
would work for determining the sum of the first n positive integers?
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From the last problem, we know that if all of the integers in the list were
positive, the sum would be at least 2, 009,010. Therefore, we are looking for a
much smaller sum and there must be quite a few negative integers in the list. We
do know, however, that there are more positive integers than negative integers.
If we tried to split them down the middle as much as possible, we would have
about 1002 positive integers and 1002 negative integers. But dont forget 0
so
we would really have 1001, 1000, 999,
, 1, 0, 1,
, 1000, 1001, 1002.
Notice this list has a sum of 1002, which is also the last integer in the list,
since every other positive integer has a matching negative integer, bringing the
sum of the pair to 0. Notice, too, that even sliding the list up one integer
increases the sum by over 2000: 1000, 999, 998
, 1, 0, 1,
, 1001, 1002,
1003. The sum for this new list is 1001 + 1002 + 1003 = 3006. (Notice the sum
can be found by adding the positive integers at the end of the list that do not
have matching negative integers in the list.) Bumping the list up by just one
more place will probably get us to our answer: 999, 998, 997
, 1, 0, 1,
,
1002, 1003, 1004 yields a sum of 1000 + 1001 + 1002 + 1003 + 1004 = 5010 and the
smallest integer in the list is 999
If you want to see last week's problem again, click on
http://www.mathcounts.org/Queries/POW_Archive.taf?_function=detail&Q_A_uid1=476&_UserReference=C86D31AE6B37388340042655
Idaho Society of Professional Engineers
PO Box 170239
Boise, ID 83717-0239
208-426-0636
Fax: 208-426-0639
E-Mail: ispe@rmci.net
Web Site: www.Idahospe.org
Idaho
Society of Professional Engineers
