https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fhILAN9vOY&feature=youtu.be If the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas” had gone up to day 16, that line might have gone “sixteen teals a-tessellating”, and it might look like the above video, made by Chris Watson. Chris has made some worksheets which can help you make your own tessellations. He also sells his own work at tessellationart.com.…
Video: Mathematical Christmas Present Wrapping
If you were wondering what happened with all the left-over wrapping paper from this morning’s post about wallpaper groups, Katie has made a YouTube video demonstrating some mathematical quirks of gift wrapping. Enjoy!
Christmas Symme-tree
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…
Aperiodvent, Day 15: Mathematiques Modernes – A + B = C
This is part of the Aperiodical Advent Calendar. We’ll be posting a new surprise for you each morning until Christmas!
Aperiodvent, Day 14: Which Springer-Verlag graduate text in mathematics are you?
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…
Aperiodvent, Day 13: The Friendship Theorem
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…
Aperiodvent, Day 12: ASCII fractal drawing
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…