Des amis très particuliers | Tangente
Des amis très particuliers

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To mark the publication of issue 200, Tangente organized a problem-writing competition. Nine of the forty-three puzzles submitted received prizes, but many others deserved one too. We asked the jury members to single out their personal favorites.

H.S.M. Coxeter was born on February 9, 1907, in Kensington, Great Britain. Since both his parents were art lovers, music became his first passion.

A source of amusement, self-reference also lies behind some famous and profound mathematical paradoxes. Logic, our senses and our certainties are all sorely tested. Reflection then takes over… and often leads to wonder!

Work on the notion of infinity led to paradoxes. This forced mathematicians to formalize set theory. Progressive axiomatization led to the current ZFC system, which nonetheless remains subject to various shortcomings following the work of Kurt Gödel and Paul Cohen.