Pentominoes.
"But that's a website for children!"
Only because people always want to say fun things are for kids. (Balloons, for example.)
If you enjoy pentominoes and want to do more, there's a nice pentominoes iPad/iPhone app called Zentomino . This book has more pentomino puzzles than a person will ever do and even includes a nice set of plastic pentominoes. I like to record interesting findings or solutions on graph paper.
Some people really get into pentominoes.
22 comments:
Pimentos?
Eat pimentos while you do pentominoes.
Themed food.
Numberphile.
https://www.youtube.com/user/numberphile
We love Numberphile around here too.
Just you wait until Pollo gets to talking about extended bonding orbitals and it's on!
In the meantime, I'll confine my responses to themes related to Fibonacci series and tangrams. At least foreseeably.
Palladian would probably have something to say about the relation of 3-dimensional spaces to architecture...
Fibonacci series and tangrams.
Tangenital, but are tangrams what Weiner sent?
I think you'd call those wang-grams.
I wanted to say wangrams but didn't think that spelling worked as well.
So does this mean that the Nobel Peace Prize winners will automatically receive Fields Medals?
Or vice versa?
Sorry, I don't mean to be a smart-ass. Just keeping it light, the way I thought Lem wanted.
Because Lem would have wanted it that way!
I find myself getting sucked back into chess again, after a 40-year layoff.
I had forgotten what a curious, compelling world chess is, and that sequences of opening moves with names like Ruy Lopez, King's Indian, and Closed Sicilian are almost as real to me as the places I lived as a child.
I also discovered that my old tournament chess set is now worth hundreds of dollars on eBay.
There is nothing special about my chess set. It was the standard plastic set sold by the US Chess Federation for $9.50 and the clear majority of sets you saw at tournaments was that very set -- the Drueke "Player's Choice."
The "Player's Choice" was a well-made American product and you can guess what happened next. Drueke was bought out by another, larger company with little interest in quality or chess. In fact they stopped selling chess sets.
Drueke, in a fit of pique or shrewdness, broke the molds for the "Player's Choice," thereby creating a collectable. All the "Player's Choice" sets became valuable and disappeared from use. You can barely find pictures of it on the web. When sets appear for sale, older players bid them up to absurd prices.
The US Chess Federation now sells a shoddy Chinese set that's durable but ugly and that's the standard set now.
You can also get a Chinese knock-off of the "Player's Choice" for $20 but the plastic is cheap, the felt is thin and often off-center, and the pieces are slightly skewed like they would wobble if you rotated them on a turntable.
We love Numberphile around here too.
Can they compute pi to the last digit?
I first learned of pentominoes from Clarke's Rendezvous With Rama, and the other night I was thinking about posting about them here, probably in one of Freeman's thread, but can't remember what made me think of them. There are some neat looking wooden sets on Ebay.
We could make molds for chess pieces, any kind you want. And make a chocolate chess set. Then as you play you can eat your opponent's pieces as you take them. And when your opponent takes yours you can say, "Bite me," and still be considered a gracious player.
Or you could make a pop-up card that when it opens the king falls over and the card reads, 'you have check-mated my heart.' Booyah!
Something is happening here. There have now been three comment threads (including one at the late Althouse on men's reproductive rights) where I have actually read Ritm's comments and found them civilized. The world has turned upside down. (Ritmo, I am glad to learn that you are capable of good faith commenting.) It must be true that math is the an gauge of Love.
Good luck on your return to chess creeley23. Gens un suma. I don't remember the "Players Choice" model but I had a number of Drueke set. I went back after many years layoff.
The hardest part for an old guy like me is getting beat by some fourteen-year old kid doing his homework in between moves. There really ought to be a minimum age limit for playing chess. I think I'll raise the issue at my club.
I second that, sydney.
Thanks, Ritmo. Tabula Rasa indeed!
Solomon Golomb's "Polyominoes" is a wonderful book about pentominoes and their relatives. Get the second edition, if possible; there's quite a bit more in it that was discovered after the first edition was in print.
Sounds good, GG. I'll put it on my impossibly long list :)
phx: The "Player's Choice" was a plastic black and tan set with 3 5/8" king with a nice heft to them. The pawns were shorter than usual and had smaller heads. All the pieces had somewhat wider bases than the usual Staunton design.
The pieces were nearly indestructible, though I had a friend who managed to slam them down so hard and frequently that the weight at the base ripped through the felt at the bottom and came out, but it was repairable.
getting beat by some fourteen-year old kid...
What I notice different these days is that chess instruction is far better than the roll-your-own methods my friends and I had -- read a few books here, study a few openings there, play tons of speed chess, and get to a tournament every couple months.
Now there is much greater emphasis on tactics for average players and with computers one can really drill on openings and endgames. Plus, there are established paths for Masters and Grandmasters to make a living as chess teachers.
People remember what a phenom the young Bobby Fischer was but we've had five or six prodigies like him since -- one was a girl, Judit Polgar, who made Grandmaster at a younger age than Fischer.
Awww thanks guys!
What can I say? Science satiates me!
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