Seminars & Colloquia Calendar

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Experimental Mathematics Seminar

Cutting Rectangles into Two Congruent Pieces

Robert Dogherty-Bliss, Dartmouth College, and Natalya Ter-Saakov, Rutgers University.

Location:  https://rutgers.zoom.us/j/95103383827
Date & time: Thursday, 06 November 2025 at 5:00PM - 6:00PM

In the March 2025 issue of Pour La Science (the French analog of Scientific American), Jean-Paul Delahaye, (the French (and contemporary) analog of Martin Gardner), solved (in collaboration with his wife, Martine Raison), the problem of counting the number of ways of cutting a 3 by 2n checkerboard into two (connected) congruent pieces, and proved the simple explicit formula 3n+1-n-1. When we asked Delahaye whether he knew the answer for a four by n rectangle, he replied that he has no clue, but the problem seems to him to be très difficile. We will describe how, with the right grammar, and some help from our silicon friends, we solved this challenging problem.
(Joint work by the two of us with Doron Zeilberger)

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