I’ve made a little game.
This island is big enough for the both of us
Fibonacci, Lucas and the Golden Ratio in Pascal’s Triangle
This is the third in a series of guest posts by David Benjamin, exploring the secrets of Pascal’s Triangle. Leonardo Pisano (1170-1250), now universally known as Fibonacci, was born in Pisa, Italy, where he was also living at the time of his death. He was educated in north Africa as his father worked there, representing the…
Mobile Numbers: Truchet Tiling
In this series of posts, Katie investigates simple mathematical concepts using the Google Sheets spreadsheet app on her phone. If you have a simple maths trick, pattern or concept you’d like to see illustrated in this series, please get in touch. Since apparently I’m now a maven for interesting fun things built using Google Sheets, someone tagged…
Aperiodical News Roundup – December 2021
Here’s a roundup of news stories from December 2021 that we didn’t cover at the time. Maths results Firstly, some nice news of a proof of a result on the density of unit fractions – a set of integers of positive density must contain distinct $n_1,\dots,n_k$ such that $\frac{1}{n_1}+\ldots+\frac{1}{n_k}=1$. (via Thomas Bloom) According to this…
Mathematicians on TV at Christmas, 2021
A surprising number of mathematicians (including some friends of the Aperiodical) have been on UK telly this Christmas! Nira Chamberlain on University Challenge Winner of the Big Internet Math-Off 2018, Nira Chamberlain, captained the Portsmouth University team in an episode of the University Challenge Christmas special (on iPlayer, and the episode on YouTube). We’re pleased…
Particularly mathematical New Years Honours 2022
It’s that time of year when we take a look at the UK Government’s New Years Honours list for any particularly mathematical entries. Here is the selection for this year – any more, let us know in the comments and we’ll add to the list. David Winton Harding, founder of the Winton Group, knighted for…
The Mathematics of Spirograph
If you’re the kind of person who’s interested in doodling and/or fun toys, you might have encountered the fun doodling toy Spirograph, or some unbranded equivalent. It sits somewhere on the continuum between an artistic drawing tool and a neat mathematical gadget.