Think about the mathematics of round robin scheduling.
Read about the problem that tickled Euler's curiosity and led to a new branch of mathematics!
Given the nets of 4 cubes with the faces coloured in 4 colours, build a tower so that on each vertical wall no colour is repeated, that is all 4 colours appear.
The reader is invited to investigate changes (or permutations) in the ringing of church bells, illustrated by braid diagrams showing the order in which the bells are rung.
A Hamiltonian circuit is a continuous path in a graph that passes through each of the vertices exactly once and returns to the start. How many Hamiltonian circuits can you find in these graphs?
Can you cross each of the seven bridges that join the north and south of the river to the two islands, once and once only, without retracing your steps?
Euler discussed whether or not it was possible to stroll around Koenigsberg crossing each of its seven bridges exactly once. Experiment with different numbers of islands and bridges.
The graph represents a salesman’s area of activity with the shops that the salesman must visit each day. What route around the shops has the minimum total distance?
This drawing shows the train track joining the Train Yard to all the stations labelled from A to S. Find a way for a train to call at all the stations and return to the Train Yard.
If you can copy a network without lifting your pen off the paper and without drawing any line twice, then it is traversable. Decide which of these diagrams are traversable.
The Four Colour Conjecture was first stated just over 150 years ago, and finally proved conclusively in 1976. It is an outstanding example of how old ideas can be combined with new discoveries. prove. . . .
Without taking your pencil off the paper or going over a line or passing through one of the points twice, can you follow each of the networks?
A personal investigation of Conway's Rational Tangles. What were the interesting questions that needed to be asked, and where did they lead?
This article for teachers discusses examples of problems in which there is no obvious method but in which children can be encouraged to think deeply about the context and extend their ability to. . . .
I start my journey in Rio de Janeiro and visit all the cities as Hamilton described, passing through Canberra before Madrid, and then returning to Rio. What route could I have taken?
In how many distinct ways can six islands be joined by bridges so that each island can be reached from every other island...
This article looks at the importance in mathematics of representing places and spaces mathematics. Many famous mathematicians have spent time working on problems that involve moving and mapping. . . .
A little mouse called Delia lives in a hole in the bottom of a tree.....How many days will it be before Delia has to take the same route again?
You can trace over all of the diagonals of a pentagon without lifting your pencil and without going over any more than once. Can the same thing be done with a hexagon or with a heptagon?
Investigate the number of paths you can take from one vertex to another in these 3D shapes. Is it possible to take an odd number and an even number of paths to the same vertex?
This article invites you to get familiar with a strategic game called "sprouts". The game is simple enough for younger children to understand, and has also provided experienced mathematicians with. . . .
This is the second of two articles and discusses problems relating to the curvature of space, shortest distances on surfaces, triangulations of surfaces and representation by graphs.
Toni Beardon has chosen this article introducing a rich area for practical exploration and discovery in 3D geometry