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Mathematical Rugby

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

Burkard Polster  and
Marty Ross
Burkard Polster
Affiliation:
School of Mathematical Sciences, Monash University, Victoria 3800, Australia, e-mail: [email protected]
Marty Ross
Affiliation:
PO Box 83, Fairfield, Victoria 3078, Australia e-mail: [email protected]; web:, www.qedcat.com
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Extract

The December 1978 issue of the Mathematical Gazette [1] contains an elegant and humorous contribution from Anthony Hughes. His Note gives a recipe for determining the optimal spot from which to make a conversion attempt in rugby. Others then elaborated on Hughes' idea; see [2] and [3] in particular. In 1996 Isaksen [4] rediscovered Hughes' results while investigating the kicking of extra points in American gridiron. There are also a number of popularisations and summaries, in which the above results are presented, and in instances rediscovered. The ones of which we are aware are listed in the references; see [5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10].

Type
Articles
Information
The Mathematical Gazette , Volume 94 , Issue 531 , November 2010 , pp. 450 - 463
Copyright
Copyright © The Mathematical Association 2010

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References

1. Hughes, A., Conversion attempts in rugby football, Math. Gaz. 62 (December 1978) pp. 292–293.10.2307/3616389Google Scholar
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