|
You don't need to be a "mathlete" to enjoy recreational math — it's fun even for the math-phobic. Martin Gardner, who wrote the "Mathematical Games" column in Scientific American for about 25 years, is considered to be responsible (almost single-handedly) for creating the interest in recreational mathematics (math games) in the latter part of the 20th century.
Martin Gardner grew up in Oklahoma, served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, and later earned his bachelor's degree in philosophy from the University of Chicago. He decided to try for a life as a freelance writer after selling a humorous short story to Esquire. His second sale was a story based on mathematical topology — a story in science fiction. In addition to his magazine column, he has published over 60 books.
Some math-minded subjects that he has popularized are
- Flexagon: A flexagon is a hexagon made up from a long strip of equilateral triangles (most easily constructed from adding-machine tape). Folding and refolding reveals the three different faces of a trihexaflexagon, the six faces of a hexahexaflexagon, and so on.
- Polyomino: A polyomino is a grouping of squares — three, four, five, and so on — such that no grouping is the same shape as any other, even when the grouping is flipped or rotated.
- Soma cubes: Soma cubes are the three-dimensional versions of polyominoes. Cubes are stacked or otherwise connected, producing different shapes that can't be duplicated by any rotations or flips of the grouping.
- Hex: The game of Hex is played on a game board consisting of hexagons. Players take turns choosing hexagons (usually with different-colored game pieces) trying to form a path from one side of the board to the other.
- Tangram: A seven-piece tangram starts out as a square. The different pieces — triangles, squares, parallelograms, and so on — are rearranged to form other shapes and pictures.
- Penrose tiling: A penrose tiling consists of rhombi (a rhombus has all four sides the same measure) that appear to have no pattern or symmetry but that, in fact, have repeated patterns within the tiling.
- Fractal: A fractal is a geometric shape that can be continuously broken down into parts that are reduced copies of the original shape. Michael Crichton's book Jurassic Park introduced the dragon fractal and referred to chaos theory.
|
