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Science News
November 30, 2002
Ivars Peterson |
Fold-and-Cut Magic Accordion folds and judicious cutting can produce a string of paper dolls or a variety of geometric patterns. This activity also suggests a mathematical question.   |
Science News
September 6, 2003
Ivars Peterson |
Pennant Races and Magic Numbers It's getting close to the end of the regular baseball season. Fanatic fans track not only which team is in first place or in position for a wild-card berth in the playoffs but also the number of games a team must win to avoid elimination. The calculation of a "magic" number is interesting. |
Science News
June 1, 2002
Ivars Peterson |
Setting Records Randomly Athletic record-breaking occurs in such small increments that chance factors loom large. Mathematicians and statisticians have sought recently to learn more about the role of randomness in records... |
Science News
December 8, 2001
Ivars Peterson |
The Math Hatter and More Looking for a cool gift for someone mathematically inclined? An unusual, conversation-generating token of appreciation? The World Wide Web offers a number of intriguing possibilities -- if you know where to stop and shop... |
Science News
September 8, 2001
Ivars Peterson |
Waves of Congestion From a physicist's point of view, traffic flow can be regarded as a "many-body system of strongly interacting bodies." Various studies have revealed that such systems can show wavelike behavior and abrupt transitions from one state to another... |
Science News
February 17, 2007
Ivars Peterson |
The Complexity of TipOver and Other Puzzles Solving puzzles such as TipOver and River Crossing can be surprisingly difficult from a mathematical standpoint. |
Science News
May 6, 2000 |
Completing Latin Squares Latin Squares have proved useful for a variety of purposes. However, their generation is a "quasigroup completion problem" which can involve difficult computation and a phase transition. |
Science News
July 5, 2003
Ivars Peterson |
Alphamagic Squares Magic squares have fascinated people for thousands of years. They consist of a set of whole numbers arranged in a square so that the sum of the numbers is the same in each row, in each column, and along each diagonal. A twist on the concept, the alphamagic square, is interesting, too. |
Science News
January 26, 2008
Julie J. Rehmeyer |
Math Trek: Benjamin Franklin Plays Sudoku Founding father entertained himself devising beautiful mathematical puzzles. |
Science News
June 24, 2006
Ivars Peterson |
Counting Franklin's Magic Squares One mathematician finds that Benjamin Franklin's remarkable magic squares are just three of more than 1 million possibilities. |
Science News
November 19, 2005 |
Pentomino Pursuits This set of simple geometrical objects has inspired a variety of puzzles and games, including the addictive pastime known as Tetris. |
Science News
January 6, 2001
Ivars Peterson |
Folding Maps Now Erik D. Demaine of the computer science department at the University of Waterloo in Ontario and his coworkers have developed an efficient method for a puzzling problem: recognizing when a creased sheet indeed is foldable into a flat package... |
Macworld
March 20, 2006
Peter Cohen |
Quinn 3.1.2 Quinn isn't Tetris reinvented, but it is a solid OS X game with some great embellishments, such as network play and customizable graphics. Best of all, it doesn't cost a dime. |
Science News
June 25, 2005
Ivars Peterson |
Magic Squares of Squares People have been toying with magic squares for more than 2,000 years--setting themselves increasingly difficult challenges to find arrays of numbers that fit given patterns. Here are some examples. |
