Recreations

The Aesthetics of Symmetry
A brief digression into how people perceive symmetrical patterns -- what makes them boring, interesting, or overly intricate
http://home.earthlink.net/~jdc24/symmetry.htm

Amazing Spiro
An applet for making spirograph graphs. Includes options for size, color and shape. Allows saving of completed image.
http://cgibin.erols.com/ziring/cgi-bin/spiro.pl/spiro.html

Back to Square One
Includes description, solutions and other resources on this cube-like puzzle.
http://www.geocities.com/jaapsch/puzzles/square1.htm

Critical Math
Articles and images on recreational math from fractals and magic squares to mathemorchids and Galois.
http://www.gwywyr.com/articles/scimaths/

Cryptarithms Online
70 brain-teasers; a Primer on Cryptarithmetic; books and links to alphametics on the Web.
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Agora/2160/

CuriousMath
Include news, math tricks, methods, facts, trivia, mostly posted by users.
http://www.curiousmath.com/

David Singmaster: List of Available Material
Teaching and recreational items in this personal collection.
http://anduin.eldar.org/~problemi/singmast/material.html

The Diamond 16 Puzzle
New version of the classic puzzle using row/column/quadrant permutations to display symmetries of graphic designs. Has link to a site on the underlying mathematics (Diamond Theory).
http://finitegeometry.org/sc/16/puzzle/

A Disproof of Pythagoras' Theorem?
A method of disproving the Theorem of Pythagoras is presented. The author is adamant that this is intended only as a puzzle to find the mistake in the arguments, and not as a serious proposal.
http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/System/8956/problems/pyth.htm

Eric's Scientific Book List: Recreational Mathematics
Book list from Eric Weisstein including titles, authors, publishers, prices, page count and some have links to Amazon.com.
http://www.ericweisstein.com/encyclopedias/books/RecreationalMathematics.html

The Eugène Strens Recreational Mathematics Collection
A special collection at the University of Calgary, including the archives of Martin Gardner. There is a searchable online index.
http://www.ucalgary.ca/lib-old/SpecColl/strens.htm

Eureka
The annual journal of the Archimedeans, the mathematical society of the University of Cambridge. It regularly contains articles on recreational mathematics.
http://www.archim.org.uk/eureka/

Fair Dice
Includes a complete list of all possible Fair Dice, most of which are not cubes. Includes pictures.
http://www.mathpuzzle.com/Fairdice.htm

Famous Curves
Visual animations of famous curves.
http://www.geocities.com/famouscurves/

Fast Arithmetic Tips
Three categories: defensive - know to check an answer, offensive - fast mental calculations, and math magic.
http://www.cut-the-knot.org/arithmetic/rapid/

Fibonacci numbers and the Pascal triangle
The relation between Fibonacci numbers and Pascal's triangle. English/German/Serbian.
http://milan.milanovic.org/math/

Final Answers
Numerous facts including formulas, magic tricks, fallacies, recreations compiled by Dr. Gerald P. Michon.
http://home.att.net/~numericana/answer/

Fun With Mathematics
Includes pages on the topics of primes, fibonacci numbers, PI computation, data encryption and links to calculator programs.
http://www.geocities.com/hjsmithh/

Gardner Index
Rough index to the fifteen books containing Martin Gardner's Mathematical Games articles from Scientific American.
http://www.ms.uky.edu/~lee/ma502/gardner5/gardner5.html

Geometric Packing Problems
By Joseph Malkevitch: "Given one shape X how and when can one pack identical copies of this shape into another shape Y?"
http://www.york.cuny.edu/~malk/tidbits/tidbit-geometric-packing.html

HAKMEM
A collection of problems from MIT. Work reported herein was conducted at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology research program.
http://www.inwap.com/pdp10/hbaker/hakmem/hakmem.html

How To Manually Find A Square Root
The way to do find a square root without a calculator.
http://math.arizona.edu/~kerl/doc/square-root.html

Iamond
A page on polyiamond puzzles. Includes many pages on tessellation.
http://www.mathpuzzle.com/iamond.htm

Jlpe's Number Recreations Page
Features original number recreations by the author, such as generalized perfect numbers, digital diversions, diophantine equations, didactic numbers, and number theory.
http://www.geocities.com/windmill96/numrecreations.html

Look and Say Sequence Generator
Creates a special kind of summation formula created by John Conway.
http://www.btinternet.com/~se16/js/looknsay.htm

MAA Library List in Recreational Mathematics
Book list split into categories. Includes title, author, publisher and date information about each book.
http://www.maa.org/BLL/recmath.htm

MAT 007 I News
A newsletter edited by undergraduates of the Department of Mathematics at the University of Toronto. Includes some online copies.
http://www.math.toronto.edu/007/

Math Forum: 2001 Mathematics Game
A contest that asks to write all integers from 1 to 100 using only the digits 2,0,0,1 and arithmetic operations.
http://mathforum.org/~judyann/2001/

Math Forum: 2002 Mathematics Game
A contest where the contestants have to write all integers from 1 to 100 using only the digits 2,0,0,2 and arithmetic operations.
http://mathforum.org/~judyann/2002/

Math Forum: Algebra Problem of the Week
View this week's algebra problem or those of previous weeks.
http://mathforum.org/algpow/

Math in the Movies
A guide to major motion pictures with scenes of real mathematics.
http://world.std.com/~reinhold/mathmovies.html

Math Magic By Computer
Interactive java puzzles and activities in different mathematical topics.
http://www.cut-the-knot.org/Curriculum/index.shtml#magic

Mathematical Fiction
A list of mathematical fictional movies, books, stories, plays and shows. Split into categories including children's books. Can be sorted by mathematical content and literary quality.
http://math.cofc.edu/faculty/kasman/MATHFICT/

Mathematical Induction
A page of uncommon problems, most closely connected with number theory.
http://www.math.cl/induction.html

Mathematical Lego Sculptures
Designed and built by Andrew Lipson. Images and LDraw files.
http://www.andrewlipson.com/mathlego.htm

Mathematical Problems - Problem Solving
Mathematics Hots (Problems) by Bruno Kevius
http://mathres.kevius.com/problem.html

Mathematical Quotation Server
Furman University Mathematical Quotation Server - random or searchable math quotes.
http://math.furman.edu/~mwoodard/mqs/mquot.shtml

Mathematical Quotation Server
A collection of mathematical quotations culled from many sources. You may conduct a keyword search through the quotation database.
http://math.furman.edu/~mwoodard/mquot.html

Mathematical Spectrum
Mathematical Spectrum is a magazine for students and teachers of mathematics in universities, colleges and schools worldwide. It may be read by anybody interested in mathematics as a recreation.
http://www.apt.group.shef.ac.uk/ms.html

A Mathematician's Aesthetics
In his classic A Mathematician's Apology, G. H. Hardy likened mathematics to poetry and painting. This site elaborates on Hardy's remark with quotations from Stevens, Klee, Fry, and Focillon. Links to related sites are given.
http://finitegeometry.org/sc/ph/aesthetics.html

Mathematics in Art and Architecture
An interdisciplinary course on mathematics in art and architecture.
http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/teaching/math-art-arch.shtml

Mathematics Museum (Japan)
At Mathematics Museum (Japan) you would be surprised how interesting mathematics is. You will find exhibition rooms produced by Japanese researchers and educators.
http://mathmuse.sci.ibaraki.ac.jp/indexE.html

Mathematik
Individual pages on different topics in Mathematics. Examples : group theory, dynamical systems theory, geometry or number theory.
http://www.mathematik.com/

Mathematische Basteleien
Topics include Flexagon, Soma Cube, Pentominos, Cube-it, Rubik's Cube, Froebel's Star, Tangram, House of Santa Claus, Chronogram, Numeric Palindromes, Latticework of Letters. English/German.
http://www.mathematische-basteleien.de/

Mathmos
Includes puzzles, jokes, quotations, poetry, and FAQs.
http://www.mathmos.net/

Maze Classification and Algorithms
A short description of mazes and how to create them. Definition of different mazetypes and their algorithms.
http://www.astrolog.org/labyrnth/algrithm.htm

Mudd Math Fun Facts
An archive of interesting math facts for use in the classroom or just for fun. Browse by subject, difficulty, keywords, or try the "random" feature. Based at Harvey Mudd College.
http://www.math.hmc.edu/funfacts/

Narcissistic Numbers
Those that are representable, in some way, by mathematically manipulating the digits of the numbers themselves.
http://www.geocities.com/~harveyh/narciss.htm

The Nine Digits Page
Puzzles and problems connected with numbers using the digits 1-9.
http://www.worldofnumbers.com/ninedig1.htm

Number Recreations by Shyam Sunder Gupta
Features interesting facts about different numbers. Includes favorite related links.
http://www.shyamsundergupta.com/

On the Puzzles with Polyhedra and Numbers
This is an article on a set of didactical games edited by the Portuguese Mathematical Society (SPM). [PDF]
http://gfm.cii.fc.ul.pt/people/jrezende/jr_poliedros-puzzles_en.pdf

One Metaphor Fits All
Explains Conway's audioactive decay that is generated by a particular kind of sequence. Includes illustrations and related resources.
http://www.btinternet.com/~se16/mhi/

Origami Mathematics
Information on the mathematics of paper folding.
http://www.merrimack.edu/~thull/OrigamiMath.html

Properties of Dice
Polyhedral dice and their properties.
http://hjem.get2net.dk/Klaudius/Dice.htm

Recmath
Includes pages on magic squares and polyomino patterns and contains related java applets.
http://www3.sympatico.ca/diharper/

Recreational Mathematics
Links collected at CAMEL, the Canadian Mathematical Society website.
http://camel.math.ca/Recreation/recreation.html

Recreational Mathematics (David Eppstein)
An extensive list of web resources for recreational math.
http://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/recmath.html

Recreational Mathematics Forum
A forum for posting messages about math recreations. Hosted at Delphi.
http://forums.delphiforums.com/recmath/

Recreational Mathematics Topics
By Steven Dutch. Symmetry, Crystals, Polyhedra and Tilings; Pythagorean triplets and other things about sums of powers; Geometry Classics.
http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/RECMATH/recmath.htm

Roman Numerals
Includes a introduction to Roman numerals including a translation of the digits used and a converter which can convert decimal to Roman numerals and vice versa.
http://www.novaroma.org/via_romana/numbers.html

Rubik's Cube Lecture Notes
Notes on the mathematics of the Rubik's cube.
http://web.usna.navy.mil/~wdj/rubik_nts.htm

SimonSingh.net
Home of Simon Singh: author, journalist and TV producer, specialising in science and mathematics. Cryptography is one of his specialties, and his site has a lot of educational and fun content about codes and codebreaking.
http://www.simonsingh.net/

Sir Roger Penrose
An article about him and his interests and contributions to recreational mathematics.
http://www.worldofescher.com/misc/penrose.html

Skytopia - Super Magnet
A colourful world built entirely using mathematical atoms and molecules. Pictures and animations demonstrate structures colliding and interacting. Animated GIF demonstrations.
http://www.skytopia.com/project/magnet/magnet.html

The Sound of Mathematics
Algorithmic music determined by mathematics and by the musical preferences of a human. General MIDI files.
http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/9349/

Spirocharts
A windows application that creates mathematically precise spirograph drawings; savable as images.
http://www.nehuenmultimedia.com.ar/html/spirograph.html

Sportlab
Combines high school and college math topics into sports applications.
http://www.geocities.com/sportlab/

Stunning Friends with Math Magic
A collection of card tricks, number guessing games, paper and glue magic, and other math exercises.
http://www.cut-the-knot.org/arithmetic/rapid/magic.shtml

Table of Numbers Problem
Given a m * n rectangle, place all numbers from 1 to mn that minimizes the sum of the products of rows and columns (both in Spanish and English).
http://www.alpertron.com.ar/CUADRO.HTM

Wade Edward Philpott
Profile and description of his mathematical games and puzzles.
http://www.gamepuzzles.com/wade.htm

Who Can Name the Bigger Number?
An essay by Scott Aaronson on the quest for ever-bigger numbers, from exponentials to Busy Beavers.
http://www.scottaaronson.com/writings/bignumbers.html