Welcome to the new homepage of Dr. Ralph Mönchmeyer!

Most people who come here probably know me from my Linux blog or from some SW- and IT-projects in Germany. I am a retired person now. And I enjoy it. In Germany, in Norway, in France, in Europe.

I will use my new homepage “anracon.de” for multiple purposes: I will comment on topics which once were part of my professional work, but I will also share some opinions and information which I regard interesting or useful for friends. The latter will also cover subjects in physics (my original field of education) and in politics.

People who are particularly interested in IT, Linux or Machine Learning may have a look at my linux-blog or my ml-blog. The latter still being under construction.

I am retired, but if someone wants to hire me for some limited IT-consultancy: send me an email with some information on the subject and basic project parameters.

Just to make a start let me mix a bit of politics, mathematics and fun:

For those of you who are worried about the growing gap between the PISA results for Germany/Norway and others on one side and Asian countries like South Korea and Japan on the other side, in particular regarding math and physics, I have a nice mathematical task to solve:
 
We have a polynomial f(x) of 3rd degree. The first coefficient is equal to +1.
Constraints:
(1) There is no integer k such that f(k-1)*f(k+1) < 0.
(2) The derivative f’ = df/dx at x=-1/4 is f'(-1/4) = -1/4.
(3) The derivative at +1/4 is negative. f'(1/4) < 0.
Question: What is the value of f at x=8? f(8) = ???
 

I had fun with it and hope you enjoy it, too.

Background:
I got this task from a worried mother in my neighborhood whose son is hopefully going to pass his Abitur in summer. This task was part of the final high school exam in South Korea. In Germany responsible officials evaluated the task to be too difficult and not suited for a final school exam (Abitur). Really?

Well, the task indeed requires some thinking and not only a reproduction of basic rules for derivatives of functions. ChatGPT 3.5 cannot solve it. I have not tried it with ChatGPT 4. But I am very confident that people in my generation who have got a reasonable well education in a German Gymnasium in the 70s are able to solve this task.

I would feel much better in my old days and have more trust in Europe’s future if I got multiple mails of young and old readers delivering the right solution and the reasoning behind it.