The Imaging Research Center (IRC) recently filmed several faculty as they attempted to solve President Hrabowski’s favorite math problem. As told to Nagaraj Neerchal and Manil Suri, mathematics and statistics, and Anne Spence, mechanical engineering, the problem is as follows:

29 children are in a class.

20 have dogs.

15 have cats.

How many have both a dog and a cat?

Watch the video below to see the various methods and strategies used by the professors to answer the problem.

[vimeo 45245451 w=500 h=281]

UMBC Professors Solve F. Hrabowski’s Favorite Math Problem from ircumbc on Vimeo.