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Physicist Richard Feynman sent the following puzzle for his father attached to a letter to his mother in 1939 [1]. Richard Phillips Feynman (ˈfaɪnmən May 11 1918 – February 15 1988 was an American Physicist known for the Path integral formulation of quantum

Each digit of a long division has been replaced by a dot or the letter A (which stands for a unique digit). Long Division is the second album by the Rustic Overtones, originally released on November 17 1995 None of the dots are the same as the A digit. The goal is to reconstruct the original figures. Here is the division:

\begin{matrix} \qquad\qquad\quad\,\!\! .\;\, .\;\, A\;\, .\\ .\, A\, .\overline{)\;\, .\;\, .\;\, .\;\, .\;\, A\;\, .\;\, .}\\ \;\! \underline{.\; .\, A\; A}\\ \quad\;\, .\;\, .\;\, .\;\, A\\ \qquad\underline{.\;\, .\;\, A}\\ \qquad\;\;\, .\;\,\, .\;\,\, .\;\,\, .\\ \qquad\quad\!\underline{.\;\, A\;\, .\;\, .}\\ \qquad\qquad\quad\! .\;\; .\;\; .\;\; .\\ \qquad\qquad\quad\! \underline{.\;\; .\;\; .\;\; .}\\ \qquad\qquad\qquad\quad\; 0 \end{matrix}

However, Feynman was not the author of this particular puzzle since the same skeleton division [2] had been previously proposed as problem E217 in the May 1936 issue of the American Mathematical Monthly by W. The American Mathematical Monthly ( is a mathematical journal founded by Benjamin Finkel in 1894. F. Cheney, Jr. and its solution by M. J. Turner was later published in the February 1937 issue of the same journal[3], long before Richard Feynman's letter.

References

  1. ^ "Dont you have time to think", ISBN 0141021136
  2. ^ Eric W. Weisstein, Skeleton Division at MathWorld. Eric W Weisstein (born March 18, 1969, in Bloomington Indiana) is an Encyclopedist who created and maintains MathWorld MathWorld is an online Mathematics reference work created and largely written by Eric W
  3. ^ W. F. Cheney, Jr. (1936). "Problems for Solution: E211-E217". American Mathematical Monthly 43 (5): 304–305. The American Mathematical Monthly ( is a mathematical journal founded by Benjamin Finkel in 1894. doi:10.2307/2301207. A digital object identifier ( DOI) is a permanent identifier given to an Electronic document.   Solutions by W. F. Cheney, Jr. and M. J. Turner (among other solvers but there is no mention of R. P. Feynman), Vol. 44, No. 2 (Feb. , 1937), pp. 105-106.

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