Beyond the infinite
Early in the Spring Term Ana de la Torre, Lottie Gunter and I visited Kilve Court to do a three-day maths course based on the theme of infinity. We slept in dormitories which was a lot of fun. I couldn’t say what the girls’ dorm was like but the boys’ dorm was a lot of fun! We had a few breaks throughout the day, when we either chatted or played football. The food was tasty and we had lots of variety. We met some really nice students from other schools and got on really well with each other. Many of the activities were mindboggling but fun!
Here’s an example of the type of things we investigated:
The infinite hotel
Question:
Imagine you are the desk assistant of a hotel with an infinite amount of rooms, but all of the rooms are full. A rich man comes and offers you a large amount of money and says he wants a room. All your rooms are full so what do you do?
Answer:
You move everybody to the next room, so the person in room 1 moves to room 2 and the person in room 2 moves to room 3 and so on. This is possible because you have an infinite number of rooms. Room 1 is now free and the rich man can move into it.
Oscar Byles
Year 7 Student