Math

Math

Pentomino Pursuits

Pentominoes are flat shapes, or tiles, formed by joining together five unit squares. There are 12 different pentominoes. This set of simple geometrical objects has inspired a variety of puzzles and games, including the addictive pastime known as Tetris. The pentomino Web site, created by students of Belgian math teacher Odette De Meulemeester, provides all […]

Math

Ranking College Football Teams

Network math leads to an alternative, simpler ranking scheme for college football.

Math

Climbing a Watery Slope

A water-walking insect can propel itself up steep, slippery slopes without moving its legs.

Math

Pushing the Limit

Scientists are moving closer to constructing superefficient, noisefree data-transmission codes.

Math

Ask-a-Friend Marketplaces

If you ask enough friends, paying for answers to questions can help you get the answers you need from a social network.

Math

Sliding Around

Seemingly simple sliding-coin puzzles can be surpassingly tough.

Math

Chaotic Moon

Saturn's craggy moon Hyperion tumbles erratically as it orbits the planet.

Math

Binary Dice

A set of specially marked, black-and-white dice suggests novel puzzles and games.

Math

Numbers of No Escape

Playful iterative processes can get you stuck in mathemagical black holes.

Math

Tying Down a Random Walk

Knotting a necktie poses mechanical and mathematical challenges.

Math

Math Music

Curious about the sounds of pi, the music of Fibonacci numbers, the blare of chaos, or the chimes of a DNA sequence? This interactive Web site, developed by Jonathan Middleton and his team at Eastern Washington University, provides a variety of tools for composing music based on mathematical recipes that convert sequences of numbers into […]

Math

A Mathemusical Potpourri

Turning numbers and mathematical ideas into musical tones comes in many flavors.