Christmas wrapping paper is sold in thousands of different variations, including plain, coloured, patterned, foiled and even flock, but one thing it’ll have in common is that it will repeat whatever pattern it has, regularly across the design. I’m interested in symmetry, and was intrigued to find a curious fact about the symmetries of such…
This is part of the Aperiodical Advent Calendar. We’ll be posting a new surprise for you each morning until Christmas!
Today we can put to rest a question that’s troubled many a mathematician: which Spinger-Verlag graduate text in mathematics are you? Answer a few questions about yourself, and you’ll find out which of the little yellow books you are. This is part of the Aperiodical Advent Calendar. We’ll be posting a new surprise for you each morning until…
Today’s entry is a Theorem of the Day: The Friendship Theorem: In a finite graph in which any two distinct vertices share exactly one common neighbour, some vertex is adjacent to all other vertices. In other words, if every pair of people at a party shares exactly one mutual friend at the party then some guest…
Ever wondered whether ASCII Art could be used to create images of fractals? Well, wonder no longer – today’s advent treat is Robert Munafo’s website containing ASCII art of successive zooms of the Mandelbrot Set, centred around the Feigenbaum point. And it’s magnificent. This is part of the Aperiodical Advent Calendar. We’ll be posting a…
Many numbers, if you repeatedly add them to the number formed by reversing their own digits, will eventually lead to a palindrome. For example: \begin{align} 7326 + 6237 &= 13563 \\ 13563 + 36531 &= 50094 \\ 50094 + 49005 &= 99099 \end{align} For most numbers, this happens with in fewer than 10 iterations. However, Wade in…
Puzzlebomb is a monthly puzzle compendium. Issue 48 of Puzzlebomb, for December 2015, can be found here: Puzzlebomb – Issue 48 – December 2015 The solutions to Issue 48 can be found here: Puzzlebomb – Issue 48 – December 2015 – Solutions Previous issues of Puzzlebomb, and their solutions, can be found at Puzzlebomb.co.uk.