On July 1, 2002 Paul Martinek, publisher of Lawyers Weekly USA, was a guest on the national television news and interview show The O'Reilly Factor. The topic was the ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court in California. The court held that requiring sudents in public schools to recite the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional because it contains the phrase "under God."
The panel that issued the ruling consisted of three judges, chosen at random from the larger number in the Ninth Circuit. Martinek commented, "Because there are 45 judges in the Ninth Circuit, there are 3,000 different combinations of three-judge panels."
Mr. Martinek's math is a little rusty. Help him out by answering the following questions:
(1) If a three-judge panel is to be chosen from a pool of forty-five judges,
how many different panels are possible?
(2) How many judges would have to be in the Ninth Circuit for the statement that
"there are 3,000 different combinations of three-judge panels" to be correct?
Solution to the Problem:
The answers are (1) 14,190 and (2) 27 or 28.
Correctly solved by:
| 1. Jim Arrison | Norristown, Pennsylvania |
| 2. Kunal Singh | Kendriya Vidyalaya School Happy Valley, Shillong, India |
| 3. Sagar Patel | Brookstone School Columbus, Georgia |
| 4. Magdy Essafty | Alexandria , Egypt |
| 5. Emily Powell | John Handley High School Winchester, Virginia |
| 6. Tristan Collins | Virginia Tech Blacksburg, Virginia |
| 7. Azusa Inaba | John Handley High School Winchester, Virginia |
| 8. James Alarie | University of Michigan -- Flint Flint, Michigan |
| 9. David & Judy Dixon | Bennettsville, South Carolina |
| 10. Yassee Pirooz | Harrisonburg High School Harrisonburg, Virginia |
| 11. Karl Jaeger | Mountain View High School Mountain View, Wyoming |
| 12. Kshitij (Chris) Mehrotra | Elgin, Illinois |
| 13. GK | Bridgewater, NJ |
| 14. Larry Schwartz | Norwalk, Connecticut |
| 15. Laura Minnis | Harrisonburg High School Harrisonburg, Virginia |
| 16. Ben Reedy | ---------- |
| 17. Laura Gronauer | ---------- |
| 18. Jack Kang | Chelmsford High School Chelmsford, Massachusetts |
| 19. Jess Thorpe | Brookstone School Columbus, Georgia |
| 20. Julianne Harris | John Handley High School Winchester, Virginia |
| 21. Andrew Montoya | John Handley High School Winchester, Virginia |
| 22. Carolyn Shuler | Brookstone School Columbus, Georgia |
| 23. Patrick Rose | North Posey Sr High School Poseyville, Indiana |
| 24. Javier Johnson | ---------- |
| 25. Ben Bassett | Sewell, New Jersey |
| 25. Leonard Sugar | ---------- |