Browse Items (46 total)

This pair of unique dice consists of a 13-sided die with both numbers and face-card labels for J, Q, K, and A, along with a 4-sided die with the standard playing card suits.

This paper presents 15 vignettes, each designed to evoke both mathematics and magic. We end with a super-generalization of the Chefalo Rope Trick and the insight that 15 = 3 x 5 = 1x1 + 1 x 1 + 2 x 2 + 3 x 3.

Every week at my School's math club, we have one puzzle to solve based around match sticks. My gift exchange item will consist of a small booklet containing 21 match stick puzzles ( in honor of Martin Gardner being born on the 21st of October), as…

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Everyone knows the hangman game! Well here is its mathematical counterpart. The goal of this game is to guess the right number. However, there is a catch... You are not allowed to guess the digits. How can you win then? You have to ask your opponent…

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One version of the famous 15 Puzzle (on which the G4G15 logo is based), that Martin Gardner described on the pages of Scientific American (1957).

You are trapped in a maze with antimatter! Your goal is to escape the maze without creating an enormous explosion.

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This paper deals with the math associated with the number of edge pieces in rectangular jigsaw puzzles.

This set of 36 cards is for word-based games (e.g., Just One, 25 Words or Less, Password, Poetry for Neanderthals). The words on the cards come from the titles of Martin Gardner's Mathematical Games column in Scientific American and his Wikipedia…

Trading cards of cellular automata patterns. A QR code to an interactive site for viewing the pattern is planned to be included on the back

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For it's decade of existence the Circo Matemático (mathematical circus), a autonome group of popularisers of mathematics part of the Ludus Association, designed a deck of cards.

The poker-sized cards (63x88 mm) are COPAG 310 quality, slimline, with…

Easy and inexpensive geometric frames (of truncated cubes or dodecahedra, for example) can be constructed from coffee stirrers and twist ties. These can be used to hang from the ceiling or to dip in soapy water. When one such frame, tetrahedral in…

We show that Jenga has interesting combinatorial properties, and we give a perfect winning strategy under the assumption that the players have perfect coordination.

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Polyhedra can be unfolded to form nets. Counterintuitively some nets can be folded to form different polyhedra by changing the way we fold the same net.
This fenomenon as been extensively studied for some types of polyhedra (usually with regular…

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A postcard with a puzzle on it - how to make the two riders ride their dragons the right way up?

Exploding Kittens is a highly-strategic, kitty-powered version of Russian Roulette. Players draw cards until someone draws an Exploding Kitten, at which point they explode, they are dead, and they are out of the game. UNLESS that player has a Defuse…

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“Factored d15” is a pair of dice, one with three sides and one with five. There are fifteen possible results from rolling the pair. Simple mental math can be used to assign the numbers 1-15 to the results, making the pair a fair virtual d15.

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COVID sometimes gives in unexpected ways. Had G4G14 had taken place March 25 - 29, 2020, my exchange gift would have been a packet of four cards with StoryCorps® Great Questions for Great Conversations and a fifth card with a puzzle.

On account of…

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The MESMOID is a right circular cylinder with an eccentric circle cut out of it. Because of its design, it can act like a rolling pendulum. Unlike a coin or wheel, when rolled it moves back and forth instead of in one direction only.
It is a…

Knight mazes are a set of squares on a square lattice upon which a chess knight may move. We examine elements of mazes which can be both attractive and puzzling, and discuss two methods of creating mazes.

A one-page puzzle with attached solution will be provided, including the instructions for this variant and the clues and grid.

A single two sided heavy page detailing some research on linked circles, space numbers and space logic as a physical gift. In addition a downloaded paper on the same subjects with more details.

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Martin Gardner was fascinated by tessellations, as am I. This year I have decided to share a 3D printed model of a fun math tile that we have been using in our Math Carnivals in the Republic of Panama, organized by the Panamanian Foundation for the…

A pair of standard, pipped, six-sided dice has had its pips painted in three colors. When you roll one of them and count pips of two of the colors, on average, white beats red, red beats blue, and blue beats white. However, when you roll both dice…

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A bookmark featuring a tribute to Martin Gardner using each of the 100 Scrabble tiles exactly once.

My bgift is two puzzle postcards
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