Tag Archives: Martin Gardner

27

Oct. ’14

Scary-o-graphic Projection, Thinky the Dragon, and Martin Gardner

Welcome to this week’s Math Munch!

Halloween is quickly approaching, which is why last week, Anna shared some pumpkin polyhedra. It just so happens that Justin did some pumpkin-y math of his own last year. He created a must-watch video called “Scary-o’-graphic Projection,” which was shown in the 2014 Bridges Short Film Festival. Enjoy, but don’t get too scared.

A stereographic projection sculpture by Henry Segerman.

A stereographic projection sculpture by Henry Segerman.

To learn some more about stereographic projection, watch one of Henry Segerman’s videos. You’ll also get to see some of his 3D printed sculptures.  (1 2)

In other news, Oct. 21 marked the 100th anniversary of the birthday of Martin Gardner!! (previously featured here, here, and here, among others) Around this time every year people get together to do math in his honor as part of Celebration of Mind.

This year we’re featuring one of Gardner’s optical illusions. Let’s begin with a video. Meet Thinky the Dragon.

You can find printable make-your-own templates here. (There are other colors as well.) Thinky is an example of a “hollow face” illusion, many more of which can be found on mathaware.org. There you can also find this video explaining the geometry behind this illusion.

And look at this AMAZING movie trailer that one of our readers made.  Thank you Lily!!!

Can you fold this strip of 7 squares into a cube?

Can you fold this strip of 7 squares into a cube?

Whats special about this square? More than you think!

Whats special about this square? More than you think!

Thank you to Colm Mulcahy for his recent post on the BBC website, where Colm put together a list of 10 really wonderful problems from the hundreds that Gardner wrote about and popularized during his career. Gardner helped show the world that thinking about problems and mathematics was a really fun way to spend time. Watch the video below to learn more about Celebration of Mind events, and click here to see if there’s an event near you.  Note: You can even host an event of your own.

BONUS: I just have to mention MoSAIC for any math art enthusiasts in our audience. Around the country, small mathematical art conferences and exhibitions will go on this year. Click to learn more or find an event near you.

Munch in honor of Martin Gardner. Bon appetit!

Picture from the MoSAIC website.

Picture from the MoSAIC website.

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03

Apr. ’14

Math Awareness Month, Hexapawn, and Plane Puzzles

Welcome to this week’s Math Munch!

April is Mathematics Awareness Month. So happy Mathematics Awareness Month! This year’s theme is “Mathematics, Magic, and Mystery”. It’s inspired by the fact that 2014 would have marked Martin Gardner’s 100th birthday.

MAM

A few of the mathy morsels that await you this month on mathaware.org!

Each day this month a new piece of magical or mysterious math will be revealed on the MAM site. The mathematical offering for today is a card trick that’s based on the Fibonacci numbers. Dipping into this site from time to time would be a great way for you to have a mathy month.

It is white

It is white’s turn to move. Who will win this Hexapawn game?

Speaking of Martin Gardner, I recently ran across a version of Hexapawn made in the programming language Scratch. Hexapawn is a chess mini-game involving—you guessed it—six pawns. Martin invented it and shared it in his Mathematical Games column in 1962. (Here’s the original column.) The object of the game is to get one of your pawns to the other side of the board or to “lock” the position so that your opponent cannot move. The pawns can move by stepping forward one square or capturing diagonally forward. Simple rules, but winning is trickier than you might think!

The program I found was created by a new Scratcher who goes by the handle “puttering”. On the site he explains:

I’m a dad. I was looking for a good way for my daughters to learn programming and I found Scratch. It turns out to be so much fun that I’ve made some projects myself, when I can get the computer…

puttering's Scratch version of Conway's Game of Life

puttering’s Scratch version of Conway’s Game of Life

Something that’s super cool about puttering’s Hexapawn game is that the program learns from its stratetgy errors and gradually becomes a stronger player as you play more! It’s well worth playing a bunch of games just to see this happen. puttering has other Scratch creations on his page, too—like a solver for the Eight Queens puzzle and a Secret Code Machine. Be sure to check those out, too!

Last up, our friend Nalini Joshi recently travelled to a meeting of the Australian Academy of Science, which led to a little number puzzle.

nalini3

What unusual ways of describing a number! Trying to learn about these terms led me to an equally unusual calculator, hosted on the Math Celebrity website. The calculator will show you calculations about the factors of a numbers, as well as lots of categories that your number fits into. Derek Orr of Math Year-Round and I figured out that Nalini’s clues fit with multiple numbers, including 185, 191, and 205. So we needed more clues!

Can you find another number that fits Nalini’s clues? What do you think would be some good additional questions we could ask Nalini? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

unusualcalc

A result from the Number Property Calculator

I hope this post helps you to kick off a great Mathematics Awareness Month. Bon appetit!

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21

Oct. ’13

Celebration of Mind, Cutouts, and the Problem of the Week

Welcome to this week’s Math Munch!  We’re going to revisit the work of Martin Gardner, look at some beautiful mathematical art, and see if we can dig into a college’s “problem of the week” program.

Martin Gardner

Martin Gardner

Last October, I wrote about Martin Gardner. He is one of the great popularizers of mathematics, known for his puzzles, columns in Scientific American, and over 100 books. Around the time of his birthday, October 21st, each year, people around the world participate in a global “Gathering4Gardner” — a so-called Celebration of Mind.

Two Sipirals

One of Martin Gardner’s many puzzles

These are gatherings of two or more people taking time to dig into the kinds of mathematics that Martin Gardner loved so much. Below you can find lots of ways to participate and share with family, friends, or strangers.

First, If you want to learn more about Gardner himself, here’s a very detailed interview. You can also try solving some of Gardner’s great puzzles. We featured both of these last year, but I recently found a whole new page of resources and activities for the Celebration of Mind.

In the video on the left you can see a geometric vanish like those we’ve previously featured (Get off the Earth, and Chocolate). The second is a surprising play on the Möbius Strip which we’ve also featured before (Art and Videos + Möbius Hearts). I hope you’ll find some time this week to celebrate Martin Gardner’s love of math and help grow your own. (Though, I guess if you’re reading this, you already are!)

Up next, check out the work of artist Elena Mir. This video shows a series of artworks she created over the last four years. They feature stacks of cut paper to form geometric shapes, and they make me wonder what I could make out of cut paper. If you make something, please let us now.

It reminds me of the work of Matt Shlian that we featured in our very first post.  You can watch Matt’s TED Talk or visit his website to see all sorts of cutouts and other paper sculptures, plus incredible videos like the one below. It might be my favorite video I’ve ever posted on Math Munch.

Finally, Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota has a weekly problem that they offer to their students, and the problem archives can be found online. These are for college students, so some of them are advanced or phrased in technical language, but I think we can find some that all of us can dig in to. Give these a try:

Have a mathematical week, and let us know if you do anything for the Celebration of Mind. Bon appetit!

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