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G4G Celebration of Mind 2012 Event Map is live

By Peter Rowlett. Posted August 6, 2012

The event map for the Gathering for Gardner Celebration of Mind 2012 is now live, with nine events already listed in North and South America and Europe. More will surely be added in time.

These are parties “to celebrate the legacy of Martin Gardner on or around Sunday, October 21, 2012 through the enjoyment of Puzzles, Magic, Recreational Math, Lewis Carroll, Skepticism and Rationality”. The website explains:

Celebrations can be large or intimate depending on the event.  They don’t have to be formal and range from a few friends getting together to discuss the above all the way up to series of lectures at Universities and Science Cafes.

In 2010 there were 66 on five continents and in 2011 there were 70 events on all seven (yes, seven) . This will be the third Celebration of Mind.

More information: You can find an event to attend in your area or sign up to host one.

Puzzlebomb – July 2012

By Katie Steckles. Posted July 7, 2012

Puzzlebomb is a monthly puzzle compendium. Issue 7 of Puzzlebomb, for July 2012, can be found here:

Puzzlebomb – Issue 7 – July 2012

The solutions to Issue 7 can be found here:

Puzzlebomb – Issue 7 – July 2012 – Solutions

Previous issues of Puzzlebomb, and their solutions, can be found here.

Spelling Bees Puzzle Blog

By Paul Taylor. Posted June 24, 2012

Hello. I’ve been talked into writing another blog post about my latest puzzle to appear in the Puzzlebomb. Spelling Bees appeared in the May and June issues. The solver is presented with a honeycomb grid containing letters and one bee (of the insect variety; the grid may contain several or no Bs). Their task is to find the two words (or phrases) that can be traced along a path through every cell (to use jargon that will be familiar to cruciverbalists and beekeepers alike) in the honeycomb grid. The bee acts as a wild card and will stand for a different letter in both words. The cells which are the first and last letters of each word are shaded to give an extra helping hand.

National Science & Engineering Competition at your local Big Bang Fair

By Peter Rowlett. Posted June 6, 2012

With the national fair over, the regional Big Bang Fairs are taking place. These aim to “inspire and enthuse the next generation of engineers and scientists”. This year the Nottingham Maths Jam group will be at the East Midlands fair repeating our puzzles stall, previously seen at the East Midlands Big Bang Fair 2011.

Maths Jam stall at the East Midlands Big Bang Fair 2011

The fairs in my part of the world are the East Midlands (East Midlands Conference Centre, University of Nottingham, 28 June 2012) and West Midlands (Thinktank, Birmingham, 26 June 2012), both organised by David Ault and his team at By Design who ran the very successful 2011 East Midlands fair. You can find your nearest via the Big Bang website.

One major reason for attending the fairs is to enter a CREST or STEM project to the National Science & Engineering Competition (East Midlands competition page; West Midlands competition page). According to the website, this

seeks to showcase and reward the best student projects from every area of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM). It is open to all 11-18 year olds living in the UK.
Students entered projects by attending a Big Bang Near Me event. The best entries from these are invited to showcase their project at The Big Bang: UK Young Scientists’ and Engineers’ Fair, held every year.
There is over £50,000 of prizes available including cash awards and trips abroad. Prizes are available for teams and individuals, for different age groups (Junior: 11 to 14 years; Intermediate: 15 to 16; Senior: 17 to 18 years) and across a range of disciplines and themes. The overall individual winners in the senior age category will be crowned the UK Young Scientist of the Year or the UK Young Engineer of the Year.

Find out more at the competition website. So what are you waiting for? Register to attend your local Fair via the website.

Matt Parker’s Twitter Puzzle – 3rd June

By Katie Steckles. Posted June 3, 2012

Matt Parker (@standupmaths on Twitter) has tweeted the following Maths Puzzle, in light of the forthcoming transit of Venus:

If you’re bored: Venus orbits the Sun in 224.70069 days while the Earth takes 365.242199. Ish. Feel free to work out how often it overtakes.

— Matt Parker (@standupmaths) June 3, 2012

No spoilers in the comments! Send your replies to Matt on Twitter.

Matt Parker’s Twitter Puzzle: 25th May

By Katie Steckles. Posted May 25, 2012

Matt Parker (@standupmaths on Twitter) has tweeted the following Maths Puzzle, to wake you up:

Friday morning #MathsPuzzle! If you start the Fibonacci sequence 2,1 instead of 1,1 do you get more or fewer primes? (Check the first ten.)

— Matt Parker (@standupmaths) May 25, 2012

No spoilers in the comments! Send your replies to Matt on Twitter.

Linear Programming: problem solving starting point

By Peter Rowlett. Posted May 23, 2012

You may recall that a while ago I wrote about Picture this!, an interactive problem/puzzle developed by one of our supported projects at work. Now the same group have developed a problem solving ‘starting point’ on linear programming.



The problem pits you as a toy manufacturer producing wooden dolls and trains, with a limited number of carpentry hours available per day. You are invited to consider questions around how many of each object can be produced and what can be done to optimise profit.

Two more interactive problem starting points will be ready in due course but for now please try this one and, importantly, provide feedback.

Important: Once you have played with the virtual problem solving environment, please fill out this survey from the researchers. The researchers have said to me that they are happy for the page to be public and hope that anyone who uses it will fill out the survey. Doing so, you will help the researchers discover whether the use of this software to present problems is worthwhile and beneficial. The survey asks if you are a student or a tutor. If you choose “student” you will be asked about your use of the simulation and your understanding of the underlying mathematics. If you choose “tutor” (or leave the question blank) you will be asked about how you used it with undergraduate students. 

This project seeks to produce “a virtual problem solving environment which hosts problems suitable for a range of undergraduate mathematics courses“. If you want to find out more about this project then you can read the interim report from this project over on my work blog.