are on the presidential preference ballots. Both are candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Admires Both

Representative Blatnik said he has a “great deal of admiration” for both senators. He described Sen. Humphrey particularly as a conscientious and energetic lawmaker. He made no reference to Sen. Kennedy’s religion. (The senator is a Catholic).

Congressman Blatnik, a tall and handsome man with a glamorous war combat record, made a good impression upon his audience. His speech delivery was precise and emphatic. He was frequently interrupted by applause.

He was introduced by William A. Beckett, president of the West Virginia Young Democratic Clubs.Given a natural number d, is there a right triangle with rational sides and area d?

Noted number theorist Karl Rubin of the University of California, Irvine addressed this question in last month's Distinguished Lecture at the MAA's Carriage House Conference Center in Washington, D.C. He showed how studying a seemingly simple query about right triangles gives rise to intriguing puzzles and deep results in number theory, with links to elliptic curves and the famous Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture.

The son of mathematician and physicist Robert Rubin and astronomer Vera C. Rubin, Karl Rubin grew up in Washington, D.C. He received his bachelor's in mathematics from Princeton University and his doctorate from Harvard University in 1981. He worked at Princeton, Ohio State University, and Stanford before moving to Irvine. In