Consider a binary tree, to the vertices of which are assigned independent Bernoulli random variables with mean p ≤ 1/2. How many of these Bernoullis one must look at in order to find a path of length n from the root which maximizes, up to a factor of 1− , the sum of the Bernoullis along the path? In the case, p = 1/2 (the critical value for nontriviality), it is shown to take Θ( −1n) steps. In ...

The Bernoullis were one of the most distinguished families in the history of science. It was Daniel Bernoulli who applied mathematical physics to medicine to further his understanding of physiological mechanisms that have an impact even in today's high-end medicine. His masterwork was the analysis of fluid dynamics, which resulted in Bernoulli's law. Most important for cardiac surgery, it descr...

Large context problems (LCP) are useful in teaching the history of science. In this article we consider the brachistochrone problem in a context stretching from Euclid through the Bernoullis. We highlight a variety of results understandable by students without a background in analytic geometry. By a judicious choice of methods and themes, large parts of the history of calculus can be made acces...

Recursive trees have been used to model such things as the spread of epidemics, family trees of ancient manuscripts, and pyramid schemes. A tree Tn with n labeled nodes is a recursive tree if n = 1, or n > 1 and Tn can be constructed by joining node n to a node of some recursive tree Tn−1. For arbitrary nodes i < n in a random recursive tree we give the exact distribution of Xi,n, the distance ...

in this paper, two pairs of new inequalities are given, which decompose two hilbert-type inequalities.

in this paper, two pairs of new inequalities are given, which decompose two hilbert-type inequalities.