We proved in this paper that 14 triangles are necessary to triangulate a square with every angle no more than 72◦, answering an unsolved problem proposed by Professor D.Eppstein. At first, computer is used to search for topologically feasible solutions of triangulations of a rectangle. Then the geometric feasibility is analyzed case by case by plane geometry. We also proved that any rectangle can be 72◦ triangulated if the number of triangles is not limited.

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Motivated by an extra credit problem from our Linear Algebra class, we study the invertibility probability of binary matrices (the number of invertible binary matrices divided by the total number of binary matrices). Binary matrices are of interest in combinatorics, information theory, cryptology, and graph theory. It is known that the invertibility probability of n × n binary matrices goes to 1 as n→∞. We conjecture that this probability monotonically increases as the size of the binary matrix increases, and we investigate this by exploring how n×n binary matrices of rank n and rank (n−1) can be enlarged to (n + 1) × (n + 1) invertible binary matrices. Calculating this explicitly for the identity matrix, we obtain a probable bound that would show that, in a sense, our conjecture is asymptotically true. With the use of a computer, we also computed how many (n + 1) × (n + 1) invertible binary matrices can be enlarged from n×n matrices of rank n and rank (n−1) for small n. In addition, we study the invertibility probability of matrices with entries in Z_q.

In this paper we first introduce a fractional form formula among a number of Euler’s formulas. We then extend the formula and with mathematical induction prove the case when the number of terms increases and the exponent is integer. Afterwards, we study the connection between Euler’s formula and Lagrange interpolating polynomial and use the latter to prove part of the extended formula. We then obtain a new formula from this connection. At last, we derive a set of new equations from the extended formula.

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