If you’ve got a mathematical friend you need to buy a Christmas gift for but have left it too late, here’s some suggestions for what you could get them, drawn from things our friends are doing (that don’t need you to wait for something to arrive in the post).
Me (Katie) and Paul have restarted our regular monthly puzzle sheets, which were previously hosted here on the Aperiodical, in the form of a Patreon. If you like slightly silly, slightly clever puzzles and want to support what we’re doing, you can sign up as a patron to be sent puzzles each month and access past editions.
Subscribers can expect an all-new A4 PDF of word, number and logic puzzles, delivered direct to their inbox on the 15th of each month. The standard subscription rate is £2 inc. VAT, and a higher tier (£4) is available for subscribers who want to get extra occasional bigger/stupider/more difficult puzzles (including cryptic crosswords), and access to hints and other puzzle tools.
A sample PDF of puzzles is available now on the PuzzleBomb Patreon page, and the first proper edition will be out on 15th September.
Aperiodipal numero uno Samuel Hansen’s acclaimed podcast series Relatively Prime is back, on a new monthly schedule, with an episode about how PhD student Ibrahim Sharif designed a lottery to award licences to sell cannabis in the state of Washington.
When the stakes are so high (geddit?! – Ed.) you have to be really sure that your lottery is fair. That’s where a lot of fun maths comes in.
You can listen to Lottery Daze on relprime.com. Sam intends to fund this new incarnation of Relatively Prime through Patreon – you can pledge to pay Sam a certain amount (starting at a dollar) for every episode he releases, with perks for paying more such as a postcard from Sam or placing an ad in one of the episodes.
Listen to Lottery Daze on relprime.com
Support Relatively Prime on Patreon