Turing Machine (computer)

Turing Machine (computer)

Turing Machine (Alan Turing, 1936)   This entry is more of historic interest than of practical use in the mathematics classroom. Alan Turing was the genius behind Ultra that helped win World War II for the allies. Our text-books have lately arrived at such...
Chomp – Cartesian game

Chomp – Cartesian game

Chomp! (Frederik Schuh, 1952)   Here is the game of chomp and a very preliminary sketch of a game to do with linear inequalities. The latter would be a fun class project to perfect – it is NOT good enough to play right now. Let me know of your ideas how to...
Hunting Submarines (vectors)

Hunting Submarines (vectors)

Hunting Submarines (John Costas, 1965) Costas arrays were part of submarine warfare and a great way to get practice with slopes. It is an unsolved problem of mathematics whether a Costas array exists for all nxn squares. The smallest square for which no answer is...
Taxi Cab Squares (geometry)

Taxi Cab Squares (geometry)

 Taxi Cab Squares  (inspired by the Inscribed square problem of Otto Toeplitz, 1911) Give your students practice with Cartesian coordinates as they explore a new variant of a famous, unsolved problem of Otto Toeplitz (1911). This problem has a very wide spectrum of...
Minotaur Gores Pythagoras

Minotaur Gores Pythagoras

Minotaur Gores Pythagoras (MathPickle, 2011) Give your students practice working with Pythagoras. One of MathPickle’s best classroom puzzles. In the newest version Theseus always starts in the upper left and the minotaur is always lurking in the lower left. If...