We chatted to Chris Dawson – the creator of Jigsy, a shape-based puzzle app which we’ve enjoyed playing – to find out more about where it came from and how it was developed.
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Double Maths First Thing: Issue 42
Double Maths First Thing knows where its towel is
Hello! My name is Colin and I am a mathematician on a mission to spread the joy and delight of puzzling stuff out.
It’s a busy week here, with client work, children at carol services, Christmas preparation, and students suddenly realising they need help for next summer’s exams.
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Exciting news from Portugal, at least for geeks of a certain age: there’s a ZX Spectrum museum in Cantanhede, which is a few kilometres northwest of Coimbra. No, YOU’RE planning an entire holiday around it. In the UK, there’s the Museum of Vintage Computers in Ramsgate. I haven’t investigated the Speccy classics here, because I’ll never emerge if I do, but feel free to!
Speaking of early computers, I have a vague recollection of reading about Conway’s Game of Life in a computer book in the 80s. Nathaniel Johnston has a book (available as a free PDF) about the maths of it. I never really got on with Life, but Daniel Shiffman’s Nature of Code looks like a the sort of thing I would like.
Another thing I never really got into was American Football. I prefer footballs where ball-shaped objects are propelled mainly by feet. However, Karen Campe has pointed me at the concept of scorigami – looking out for previously unencountered scorelines. That, I will concede, is something more interesting than proper football has. Is there a similar thing for rugby?
Code hero Christian Lawson-Perfect has taken a hit for the team and gone into three schools for Maths Week England. It sounds exhausting, but also that he got a lot out of it.
I mentioned some time ago a Chalkdust article by Dominika Vasilkova about cardioids in coffee cups; here she is on Mathematical Objects talking about the same topic.
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In December, MathsJam typically runs a week early: I’ll be at Weymouth’s version of it on Tuesday 16th, and you can find your nearest – or start your own at the MathsJam site. This month’s activity sheet features Robin’s dissection puzzle from last time.
Sanjeev at the Scribble Board is hosting this month’s Carnival of Mathematics – use that link to submit anything that belongs.
I hope you’re keeping up with Scroggsvent – I’m enjoying the puzzles as usual, and look forward to finding that I’ve made several mistakes that I’ll joyfully put right.
That’s all I’ve got for this week. If you have friends and/or colleagues who would enjoy Double Maths First Thing, do send them the link to sign up – they’ll be very welcome here.
If you’ve missed the previous issues of DMFT or – somehow – this one, you can find the archive courtesy of my dear friends at the Aperiodical.
Meanwhile, if there’s something I should know about, you can find me on Mathstodon as @icecolbeveridge, or at my personal website. You can also just reply to this email if there’s something you want to tell me.
Until next time,
C
200 3D printed shapes, 480 children, and a lot of paint 😬
Maths Week England happened a couple of weeks ago. I had put my name on the speaker directory, and sure enough a maths lead from a primary school in County Durham emailed me to ask if I could go in and do something for them.
Double Maths First Thing: Issue 41
Double Maths First Thing is making a list but not checking it.
Hello! My name is Colin and I am a mathematician on a mission to spread mathematical joy and delight, even when I’m not feeling much of either. December is a tough month for me: routines get broken, I have to be sociable, and there isn’t enough daylight.
Now I’ve somewhat recovered from Big MathsJam, I’m happy to report that I had a whale of a time there – the new venue being a couple of hours closer helped me a lot. I think my highlights were Kristin Ohlmann’s talk about decorating a unicycle, Ally Stanley’s bit on trying to ride every tube line as fast as possible, and Scroggs doing Scroggs things with a squared-square puzzle.
It was also pointed out to me that by posting periodically at the Aperiodical, I’m subverting the good name of the site. I argue that there’s a glitch in the periodicity every time we change the clocks, so it’s not quite periodical.
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Since we’re on the subject of unicycles, Declan Chidlow answers some frequently-asked questions.
Robin Houston has posted a dissection puzzle, a variation on one I love.
In “things that are lovely to play with” news, here is a very satisfying Voronoi diagram generator and a thing that goes boing. You might also want to see how quickly you can draw a cool S.
I enjoyed a post by Alistair Bird about – with a certain degree of nominative determinism – pigeonholes
And I was intrigued to learn there’s a fairly simple version of the four-colouring problem that’s unsolved: the earth-moon problem. I imagine there are many equally-simple unsolved problems in that field.
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December is, of course, advent calendar season. Which means it’s nearly Christmas, and something terrible has happened in the Scroggsverse. There’s a shortened Advent of Code, as well as an Advent of Maths. Meanwhile, DMFT favourite Karen Campe has dug up an old Calendar of Problems.
New month, new Carnival: Tom Briggs is this month’s ringmaster. Sanjeev at The Scribble Board is in charge next month, and you can submit articles (or videos, or whatever you like) for it here.
I’ve also got my hands on the new Chalkdust magazine, including Mats Vermeeren’s write-up of my highlight of last Big MathsJam and Donovan Young explaining entropy. Plus the “famously fiendish” crossnumber.
Katie Steckles will be giving the Liverpool Maths Society Newstead Memorial Christmas Lecture about fractals on Tuesday, December 9th, 1:30pm in the Sherrington Building at the University of Liverpool. Go along and tell her she’s awesome, or simply buy some of the 15 minute maths activities she’s developed with Alison Kiddle.
That’s all I’ve got for this week. If you have friends and/or colleagues who would enjoy Double Maths First Thing, do send them the link to sign up – they’ll be very welcome here.
If you’ve missed the previous issues of DMFT or – somehow – this one, you can find the archive courtesy of my dear friends at the Aperiodical.
Meanwhile, if there’s something I should know about, you can find me on Mathstodon as @icecolbeveridge, or at my personal website. You can also just reply to this email if there’s something you want to tell me.
Until next time,
C
Carnival of Maths 246
The next issue of the Carnival of Mathematics, rounding up blog posts from the month of November 2025, is now online at TomMaths.
The Carnival rounds up maths blog posts from all over the internet, including some from our own Aperiodical. See our Carnival of Mathematics page for more information.
Double Maths First Thing: Issue 40
DMFT reckons it must be downhill from here
Hello! My name is Colin and I am a mathematician on a mission to find and disseminate the joy in doing maths, solving puzzles and getting to the root of things in general.
I’m back from an excellent weekend at Big MathsJam, and now rather sad that I have to make my own breakfast and nobody’s saying “have you seen this cool thing?” Bah. (I’m still recovering. I’ll write up my highlights in the next issue).
Links
I had some small involvement with the maths trail at MathsWorld, despite having no background other than following town trails with the kids. I wish I’d known about this paper by Mary L Dalton and Jennifer Yantz, or this helpful gloss from Mykyta Kliapets.
Firmly in the “to read one day” pile is an article by Kenneth E Iverson (who created APL) about how notation shapes how you think.
A delightful thing: the Steinhaus longimeter, a grid on a transparency for measuring the length of a curve by counting how many times it crosses a grid line. Chris Staecker has a page describing a whole batch of “antique” calculating devices.
Also delightful, an interview with Andrew Wiles in Plus, from nearly a decade ago – with the quote “this is what we live for, these moments that create illumination and excitement”. Spot on!
My mental arithmetic is rustier than it was – it’s still good enough to make people swear at me when I get trig questions right in my head – but here’s a technique I didn’t know about for mental division by Daniel Timms.
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Tomorrow, Thursday November 27th, there’s a Finite Group live stream about the maths of robots. I always enjoy catching up on these with young Bill.
We’re almost at the end of the month, which means a Carnival is imminent. Tom Briggs is in the hot-seat, and you can still send him things via the Carnival submission page.
That’s all I’ve got for this week. If you have friends and/or colleagues who would enjoy Double Maths First Thing, do send them the link to sign up – they’ll be very welcome here.
If you’ve missed the previous issues of DMFT or – somehow – this one, you can find the archive courtesy of my dear friends at the Aperiodical.
Meanwhile, if there’s something I should know about, you can find me on Mathstodon as @icecolbeveridge, or at my personal website. You can also just reply to this email if there’s something you want to tell me.
Until next time,
C
Beach Spectres update – I’ve made a big tile!
Here’s an update on my progress in the Beach Spectres project. I’ve put out two update videos since the last post but failed to write a post here. I promise I’m trying my best to be more organised than usual!