Ivars Peterson's
MathTrek Archives

Sculpting with a Twist
December 22, 2003
Tricky Crossings
December 15, 2003
Megaprime Champion
December 8, 2003
The Cow in the Classroom
December 1, 2003
Pentomino Battleships
November 24, 2003
Cool Rationals
November 17, 2003
Geometreks
November 10, 2003
Strolling Down Möbius Lane
November 3, 2003
Seven-Game World Series
October 27, 2003
Election Reversals
October 20, 2003
Goldbach Computations
October 13, 2003
A Magic Knight's Tour
October 6, 2003
The Bias of Random-Number Generators
September 29, 2003
Rolling with Reuleaux
September 22, 2003
Trimathlon Palindromes
September 15, 2003
Pennant Races and Magic Numbers
September 8, 2003
Hyperbolic Five
September 1, 2003
SET Math
August 25, 2003
Golf Clubs and Driving Distance
August 18, 2003
Running Lanes and Extra Steps
August 11, 2003
Perfect Pyramids
July 28, 2003
Improving the Odds in RISK
July 14, 2003
Alphamagic Squares
July 7, 2003
Theorems in Wheat Fields
June 30, 2003
Prime-Time Cicadas
June 23, 2003
A Dog, a Ball, and Calculus
June 9, 2003
Measuring with Jugs
June 2, 2003
Deciphering the Wrinkles of Crumpled Sheets
May 26, 2003
Sequence Puzzles
May 19, 2003
Coins for Making Change Efficiently
May 12, 2003
A Geometric Superformula
May 5, 2003
Recycling Topology
April 28, 2003
The Colors of an Equation's Roots
April 21, 2003
Constructing Domino Portraits
April 14, 2003
Fractured Granite and Fractal Prints
April 7, 2003
Crediting Basketball's Three-Pointers
March 31, 2003
Chomping to Win
March 24, 2003
Winning Yahtzee
March 17, 2003
Contra Dances, Matrices, and Groups
March 10, 2003
Cracking Fermat Numbers
March 3, 2003
The Tangled Task of Distinguishing Knots
February 24, 2003
A Graceful Sculpture's Showy Snow Crash
February 10, 2003
Sliding-Coin Puzzles
February 3, 2003
Chemical Dissections
January 27, 2003
A Perfect Collaboration
January 20, 2003
A Remarkable Dearth of Primes
January 13, 2003
Sound-Byte Math Music
January 6, 2003
Lacing Shoes, Revisited
December 23, 2002
A Trillion Pieces of Pi
December 16, 2002
Five-Suit Decks, Traffic-Jam Puzzles, and Other Treats
December 9, 2002
Fold-and-Cut Magic
December 2, 2002
Ancient Infinities
November 25, 2002
Card Shuffling Shenanigans
November 18, 2002
A Fibonacci Fountain
November 11, 2002
There was no column for the week of November 4, 2002
Tetris is Hard
October 28, 2002
A Fibonacci Fountain
October 21, 2002
Catching Flies
October 14, 2002
There was no column for the week of October 7, 2002
Stepping Beyond Fibonacci Numbers
September 30, 2002
DNA's Error-Detecting Code
September 23, 2002
Doing the Wave
September 16, 2002
Solving an Ancient African Game
September 9, 2002
Golden Blossoms, Pi Flowers
September 2, 2002
Probabilities in Bingo
August 26, 2002
Testing for Divisibility
August 19, 2002
Home Runs and Ballparks
August 12, 2002
There was no column for the week of August 5, 2002
There was no column for the week of July 29, 2002
Taxicab Numbers
July 22, 2002
Dangerous Problems
July 1, 2002
Conquering Catalan's Conjecture
June 24, 2002
Fractal Roots and Artful Math
June 10, 2002
Setting Records Randomly
June 3, 2002
Crystal Möbius
May 27, 2002
A Lawyer's Math Library
May 20, 2002
Song-and-Dance Fermat
May 13, 2002
Prime Spirals
May 6, 2002
Getting Clobbered
April 29, 2002
Tricky Dice Revisited
April 15, 2002
The EKG Sequence
April 8, 2002
Rainbow Randomness
April 2, 2002
There was no column for the week of March 25, 2002
Highway Relativity
March 18, 2002
Scrabble's Random Letters
March 4, 2002
Ice Cream Wars
February 25, 2002
A Snowy Twist
February 18, 2002
Algebraic Hearts
February 11, 2002
Euler's Homework
February 4, 2002
Sampling for Superclarity
January 28, 2002
Computers by the Trillions
January 21, 2002
How Far Away?
January 7, 2002
Guessing Cards
December 24, 2001
The Math Hatter and More
December 10, 2001
Canary Songs
November 26, 2001
Online Bidding Tips
November 12, 2001
Absolutely Abnormal
November 5, 2001
Tolstoy's Calculus
October 29, 2001
Firm Data
October 22, 2001
Spotting Ladybugs
October 15, 2001
Follow the Leader
October 1, 2001
Sand Drawings and Mirror Curves
September 24, 2001
Waves of Congestion
September 10, 2001
Mozart's Melody Machine
August 21, 2001
Art of Pursuit
July 23, 2001
Pursuing Pursuit Curves
July 16, 2001
Acoustic Residues
July 9, 2001
Random Home Runs
July 2, 2001
Bubbles and Math Olympiads
June 18, 2001
Möbius Accordion
June 11, 2001
Prime Twins
June 4, 2001
Cosmic Numerology
May 21, 2001
Lava Lamp Randomness
May 7, 2001
Temple Circles
April 23, 2001
Strange Orbits
April 9, 2001
Prized Geometric Logic
April 2, 2001
Buses on Quantum Schedules
March 26, 2001
Subtle Logic, Winning Game
March 19, 2001
Mayan Mars
March 12, 2001
Quirky Video Poker
March 5, 2001
Appealing Numbers
February 26, 2001
Immersed in Klein Bottles
February 19, 2001
White Narcissus
February 12, 2001
Fibonacci's Chinese Calendar
February 5, 2001
Scheduling Random Walks
January 22, 2001
Folding Maps
January 15, 2001
Zeroing In on Catalan's Conjecture
December 4, 2000
Square of the Hypotenuse
November 27, 2000
Poe's Secret
November 13, 2000
Mathematical Art on Display
November 4, 2000
Dots and Boxes
October 30, 2000
Disorder in the Deck
October 16, 2000
Staying in Step
October 9, 2000
Planes of Budapest
October 3, 2000
Plato's Molecule
September 18, 2000
Defending the Roman Empire
September 11, 2000
Möbius at Fermilab
September 4, 2000
Scrambled Grids
August 28, 2000
Goldbach's Prime Pairs
August 21, 2000
Art of the Grid
August 14, 2000
Software's Origin
July 31, 2000
Turtle Tracks
July 24, 2000
Pinpointing Prey
July 17, 2000
Möbius and his Band
July 10, 2000
Super Bowls and Stock Markets
July 3, 2000
Spinning to a Rolling Stop
June 26, 2000
Punctured Polyhedra
June 19, 2000
Puzzling Lines
June 12, 2000
Sliding Pi
June 5, 2000
Math Trails in Ottawa
May 29, 2000
Buffon's Needling Ants
May 15, 2000
Completing Latin Squares
May 8, 2000
Tilt-A-Whirl Chaos II
May 1, 2000
Tilt-A-Whirl Chaos I
April 24, 2000
Hiding in DNA
April 10, 2000
The Incredible Pi Code
April 1, 2000
Abbott and Costello's Wacky Math
March 27, 2000
Whips and Dinosaur Tails
March 20, 2000
A Fair Deal For Housemates
March 13, 2000
Losing to Win
March 6, 2000
Troublesome Weather Trends
February 21, 2000
Jazzing Up Euclid's Algorithm
February 14, 2000
A Minimal Winter's Tale
February 7, 2000
The Math Game
January 31, 2000
Turn of the Screw
January 24, 2000
Algebra, Philosophy, and Fun
January 17, 2000
Candy for Everyone
January 10, 2000
A Stranger from Spaceland
December 20, 1999
Pretty Functions
December 13, 1999
Party Games
December 6, 1999
Geometry Out of Africa
November 29, 1999
Curving Beyond Fermat
November 22, 1999
Prophet of Chaos
November 15, 1999
Art of the Tetrahedron
November 8, 1999
Adventures in the MathZone
November 1, 1999
Euler Bricks and Perfect Polyhedra
October 25, 1999
Magic Tesseracts
October 18, 1999
Mastering Mastermind
October 11, 1999
Sculpture Generator
October 4, 1999
Tiling with Polyominoes
September 27, 1999
Jackson Pollock's Fractals
September 20, 1999
There was no column for the week of September 13, 1999
There was no column for the week of September 6, 1999
MSRI Reflections
August 30, 1999
Lunar Shadows
August 23, 1999
Matrices, Circles, and Eigenthings
August 16, 1999
Averting Instant Insanity
August 9, 1999
Juggling by Design
August 2, 1999
Mersenne Megaprime
July 26, 1999
Row Your Boat
July 19, 1999
A Song About Pi
July 12, 1999
Solitaire-y Sequences
July 5, 1999
The Return of Zeta
June 28, 1999
The Mark of Zeta
June 21, 1999
MSRI Journal
June 14, 1999
Counting by Twos
June 7, 1999
Brainy Figuring
May 31, 1999
Möbius in the Playground
May 24, 1999
Coloring Penrose Tiles
May 17, 1999
Palindromic Primes
May 10, 1999
Minesweeper Logic
May 3, 1999
A Viral Dilemma
April 26, 1999
Gauss's Orbits
April 19, 1999
Simulating Society
April 12, 1999
There was no column for the week of April 5, 1999
Tying Down a Random Walk
March 29, 1999
A Winning Division
March 22, 1999
Plane Patterns
March 15, 1999
Minimal Snow
March 8, 1999
The Galois Story
March 1, 1999
Financial Noise
February 22, 1999
There was no column for the week of February 15, 1999
The Shoelace Problem
February 8, 1999
Rock-and-Roll Bridge
February 1, 1999
Medieval Harmony
January 25, 1999
Millennium Primes
January 18, 1999
Dancing Chaos
January 11, 1999
There was no column for the week of January 4, 1999
There was no column for the week of December 28, 1998
Calendar Quirks
December 21, 1998
Who's Really No. 1?
December 14, 1998
Prime Treasure Hunt
December 7, 1998
Birthday Surprises
November 23, 1998
Geometry of War
November 16, 1998
Hunting e
November 9, 1998
How to Fix an Election
November 2, 1998
Unfair Dice
October 26, 1998
License Codes
October 19, 1998
There was no column for the week of October 12, 1998
Arithmagic
October 5, 1998
Home Run Numbers
September 28, 1998
Calculus Made Easy
September 21, 1998
There was no column for the week of September 14, 1998
Love's Dynamics
September 7, 1998
There was no column for the week of August 31, 1998
There was no column for the week of August 24, 1998
There was no column for the week of August 17, 1998
There was no column for the week of August 10, 1998
Magic of Perfect Shuffles
August 3, 1998
Beyond Extra Large (and Ultra Small)
July 27, 1998
Visiting Artlandia
July 20, 1998
Riding on Square Wheels
July 13,1998
Prime Talent
July 6, 1998
First Digits
June 29, 1998
Prime Listening
June 22, 1998
Coins, Art, and Math in North Bay
June 15, 1998
World's Fastest Man
June 8, 1998
There was no column for the week of May 25, 1998
Cubes of Perfection
May 18, 1998
Return of the Mathematical Tourist
May 11, 1998
Cracking a Medieval Code
May 4, 1998
Cattle of the Sun
April 20, 1998
Curves on Baseballs
April 13, 1998
Math TV: Life by the Numbers
April 6, 1998
There was no column for the week of March 30, 1998
A Prime Surprise
March 23, 1998
More than Just a Plane Game
March 16, 1998
There was no column for the week of March 9, 1998
Pick a Digit, Any Digit
March 2, 1998
The Limits of Mathematics
February 23, 1998
The Counterfeit Coin
February 16, 1998
Nine Primes in a Row
February 9, 1998
Digits, Squares, and Cycles
February 2, 1998
Truel in the Sun
January 26, 1998
Picking Winners
January 19, 1998
Murder and the Economist
January 12, 1998
From Starting Line to Ancient Angle
January 5, 1998
There was no column for the week of December 29, 1997
Mailbox: Magic Dice, Monopoly, and Contra Dancing
December 22, 1997
A Penny Surprise
December 15, 1997
The Amazing ABC Conjecture
December 8, 1997
Getting Slammed in Tennis
December 1, 1997
Circles of Dissonance
November 24, 1997
A Progression of Primes
November 17, 1997
Springing a Physical Surprise
November 10, 1997
Knotted Walks
November 3, 1997
Names for Numbers
October 27,1997
No MathTrek for October 20th
Fractions, Cycles, and Time
October 13, 1997
Tricky Dice
October 6, 1997
Who's Really Ahead?
September 29, 1997
Tickling the Mind
September 22, 1997
Deep in the Jungles
September 15, 1997
Martin Gardner's Lucky Number
September 8, 1997
A Passion for Pi Revisited
August 4, 1997
Cutting Corners
July 28, 1997
A Glitch in Time
July 21, 1997
The Ladies' Diary
July 14, 1997
The Traveling Monkey
July 7, 1997
Playing with Ruth-Aaron Pairs
June 30, 1997
Contradancing and Matrices
June 16, 1997
Monopoly Dollars and Sense
June 9, 1997
Prime Gaps
June 2, 1997
Mirror Bounces
May 26, 1997
Around the Dartboard
May 19, 1997
Pentium Bug Revisited
May 12, 1997
Fun and Games in Nevada
May 5, 1997
There was no column for the week of April 28, 1997
There was no column for the week of April 21, 1997
Drums that Sound Alike
April 14, 1997
Sprouts for Spring
April 7, 1997
Flight of the Bumblebee
March 31,1997
Winning Partitions
March 24, 1997
Spreading Rumors
March 17, 1997
A Taste for M&M's
March 10, 1997
Billiards in the Round
March 3, 1997
From Counting to Writing
February 24, 1997
Curves and Lying Calculators
February 17, 1997
Pascal's Fractals
February 10, 1997
Math in Arcadia
February 3, 1997
A Perfect Collaboration
January 27, 1997
Fragments of the Past
January 20, 1997
Hankies, Snarks, and Triangles
January 13, 1997
Maps of Many Colors
January 6, 1997
There was no column for the week of December 30, 1996
Prime Theorem of the Century
December 23, 1996
Another Record Prime
December 16, 1996
Leonardo, Water, and Math
December 9, 1996
Fair Play and Dreidel
December 2, 1996
Pennies in a Tray
November 25, 1996
Next in Line
November 18, 1996
From Number to Formula
November 11, 1996
Problem at the Art Gallery
November 4, 1996
There was no column for the week of October 28, 1996
Rolling with Reuleaux
October 21, 1996
More than Magic Squares
October 14, 1996
Paul Erdos: An Infinity of Problems
October 7, 1996
Recycling Topology
September 30, 1996
Comedy Tonight -- Math Style!
September 23, 1996
Mining Prime Terrain
September 16, 1996
Trouble with Wild-Card Poker
September 9, 1996
Beyond the Ellipse
September 2, 1996
Math Camp
August 26, 1996
Tricky Crossings
August 19, 1996
Match Sticks in the Summer
August 12, 1996
Old and New Arithmetic
August 5, 1996
Mystic Chaos: A Preliminary Report
July 29, 1996
DNA Adds Up
July 22
Waring Experiments
July 15, 1996
Computing with the EDSAC, Part 2
July 8, 1996
Computing with the EDSAC, Part 1
July 1, 1996
There was no column for the week of June 24, 1996.
DNA, Computers, and Killer Apps
June 17, 1996
Groups, Graphs, and Paul Erdos
June 10, 1996
Fashioning a World Brain
June 3, 1996
Math and Music Education
May 29, 1996
Cracking the Myth of Ball Control
May 20, 1996
Toward a Fairer Expansion Draft
May 13, 1996
There was no column the week of May 6.
Frank's World: Math on Cable
April 29, 1996
A Catalog of Random Bits
April 22, 1996
Mating Games and Lizards
April 15, 1996
Soap Films and Grid Walks
April 8, 1996
Euclid's Fourteenth Book
April 1, 1996
Pythagoras Plays Ball
March 25, 1996
Computing in a Surreal Realm
March 18, 1996
A Passion for Pi
March 11, 1996
The Cow in the Classroom
March 4, 1996
Calculation and the Chess Master
February 26, 1996