I came across a combination of words that did not look correct in my mind while researching today’s list, recreational mathematics. It never occurred to me that math was recreational in any way, shape or form. And with Martin Gardner’s birthday today, I learned something new. That not only could mathematics be recreational, but a lot of the games I enjoy playing are based on math of some sorts. Martin Gardner was the columnist for Scientific American for 25 years. His columns, have not for the most part, found their way to the net, but have been collected and sold as books. He has over 60 books of “fun” things to do with math as well as another 60 books or so on a wide range of subjects. Perhaps his best known book is “The Annotated Alice” is an in depth explanation of the various concepts, wordplays, and contemporary references C.S. Lewis used in “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”. He did the same for “Through the Looking-Glass” and “The Hunting of the Snark”. So today’s list is the some of the top subjects of this legendary column.

1. Flexagons – Flat paper folded to reveal various faces, often unexpected
2. John Horton Conway’s Game of Life – Not Milton Bradley’s version but a version based on cell automation.
3. Polyominoes – they are just polymorphs, with a square base. Ok, ok, I have no idea either, but it makes sense to someone.
4. The Soma cube – I had no idea those wood cubes that come apart into 7 pieces made up of two shade cubes had a name. I love this puzzle and have one myself and I usually can get it together on my own without turning on the internet. But not always.
5. “Hex” created by Piet Hein and John Forbes Nash (the math guy in “A Beautiful Mind”) – Based on the ancient game, “Go”
6. Tangrams – putting triangles into interesting shapes. A lot like The Soma cube, but much flatter.
7. Penrose tiling – An amazing article in Wiki about this. It would make much more sense to just read yourself than for me to try to explain it. However they do it, its pretty cool.
8. Cryptanalysis/public key cryptography/trapdoor ciphers/the RSA-129 cryptographic challenge- Now we are talking codes. Always interesting stuff.
9. Analysis of the work of M. C. Escher – Which I hope will be its on list one day.
10. Fractals – parts of a geometric shape that appears to be a reduced copy of the original. I think.

If you understand math better than I do, these things might make more sense. While I find the imagery interesting, I am hard pressed to figure out how to do these things with Excel. Maybe that should be Scientific American’s next long term column, Recreational Mathematics for Excel. And next time you see something cool in Mathematics, remember October 21^st in Martin Gardner’s birthday, who certainly made math more fun for millions over the years and influenced dozens of our leading mathmeticians today!

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