puzzled

"A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas." -- G.H. Hardy, from my favourite calculus text.

I finally remembered to go to the Farmers Market while it was still Saturday ... and ended up with a puzzle!















I went for rutabagas and came home with a contract to supply some mathematical inspiration for one Old John Evans whose passion is making puzzles. His work is so entrancing I ended up finishing one with him while we discussed Escher and Gardner and interconnecting patterns.

Together we finished his latest invention he calls the "strange puzzle" - similar to this one, it looks like a puzzle with no edges. Because of the way it's made, you can walk the intricate filigree pieces across either horizontally or diagonally (some flipping over to reveal the reversed colour scheme, some translating directly across). It's mind-bending to figure out how it relates.

He needs someone to sort out the mathematics of what he does and give him some new sources of inspiration, I'd like someone to bring mathematical functions like cardioids and mobius surfaces to life with some aesthetic.

He insisted on giving me the Strange Puzzle; I insisted I can't have it till I come up with some patterns for him to work on next :-) So I'll have a real conversation piece for my coffee table and something interesting to do with math for a hobby.



Ooooh - tilings, fractals, topography ...