Recreations

SimonSingh.net - Home of Simon Singh: author, journalist and TV producer, specialising in science and mathematics. Cryptography is one of his specialties, and his site has a lot of educational and fun content about codes and codebreaking.
http://www.simonsingh.net/

Amazing Spiro - An applet for making spirograph graphs. Includes options for size, color and shape. Allows saving of completed image.
http://cgibin.erols.com/ziring/cgi-bin/spiro.pl/spiro.html

The Diamond 16 Puzzle - New version of the classic puzzle using row/column/quadrant permutations to display symmetries of graphic designs. Has link to a site on the underlying mathematics (Diamond Theory).
http://finitegeometry.org/sc/16/puzzle/

Mudd Math Fun Facts - An archive of interesting math facts for use in the classroom or just for fun. Browse by subject, difficulty, keywords, or try the "random" feature. Based at Harvey Mudd College.
http://www.math.hmc.edu/funfacts/

Number Recreations by Shyam Sunder Gupta - Features interesting facts about different numbers. Includes favorite related links.
http://www.shyamsundergupta.com/

Final Answers - Numerous facts including formulas, magic tricks, fallacies, recreations compiled by Dr. Gerald P. Michon.
http://home.att.net/~numericana/answer/

Mathematics Museum (Japan) - At Mathematics Museum (Japan) you would be surprised how interesting mathematics is. You will find exhibition rooms produced by Japanese researchers and educators.
http://mathmuse.sci.ibaraki.ac.jp/indexE.html

Stunning Friends with Math Magic - A collection of card tricks, number guessing games, paper and glue magic, and other math exercises.
http://www.cut-the-knot.org/arithmetic/rapid/magic.shtml

Mathematical Spectrum - Mathematical Spectrum is a magazine for students and teachers of mathematics in universities, colleges and schools worldwide. It may be read by anybody interested in mathematics as a recreation.
http://www.apt.group.shef.ac.uk/ms.html

Gardner Index - Rough index to the fifteen books containing Martin Gardner's Mathematical Games articles from Scientific American.
http://www.ms.uky.edu/~lee/ma502/gardner5/gardner5.html

Mathmos - Includes puzzles, jokes, quotations, poetry, and FAQs.
http://www.mathmos.net/

One Metaphor Fits All - Explains Conway's audioactive decay that is generated by a particular kind of sequence. Includes illustrations and related resources.
http://www.btinternet.com/~se16/mhi/

Cryptarithms Online - 70 brain-teasers; a Primer on Cryptarithmetic; books and links to alphametics on the Web.
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Agora/2160/

Iamond - A page on polyiamond puzzles. Includes many pages on tessellation.
http://www.mathpuzzle.com/iamond.htm

The Nine Digits Page - Puzzles and problems connected with numbers using the digits 1-9.
http://www.worldofnumbers.com/ninedig1.htm

Jlpe's Number Recreations Page - Features original number recreations by the author, such as generalized perfect numbers, digital diversions, diophantine equations, didactic numbers, and number theory.
http://www.geocities.com/windmill96/numrecreations.html

Eureka - The annual journal of the Archimedeans, the mathematical society of the University of Cambridge. It regularly contains articles on recreational mathematics.
http://www.archim.org.uk/eureka/

Eric's Scientific Book List: Recreational Mathematics - Book list from Eric Weisstein including titles, authors, publishers, prices, page count and some have links to Amazon.com.
http://www.ericweisstein.com/encyclopedias/books/RecreationalMathematics.html

Spirocharts - A windows application that creates mathematically precise spirograph drawings; savable as images.
http://www.nehuenmultimedia.com.ar/html/spirograph.html

A Disproof of Pythagoras' Theorem? - A method of disproving the Theorem of Pythagoras is presented. The author is adamant that this is intended only as a puzzle to find the mistake in the arguments, and not as a serious proposal.
http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/System/8956/problems/pyth.htm

Recreational Mathematics (David Eppstein) - An extensive list of web resources for recreational math.
http://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/recmath.html

Mathematical Quotation Server - Furman University Mathematical Quotation Server - random or searchable math quotes.
http://math.furman.edu/~mwoodard/mqs/mquot.shtml

Properties of Dice - Polyhedral dice and their properties.
http://hjem.get2net.dk/Klaudius/Dice.htm

Mathematics in Art and Architecture - An interdisciplinary course on mathematics in art and architecture.
http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/teaching/math-art-arch.shtml

Who Can Name the Bigger Number? - An essay by Scott Aaronson on the quest for ever-bigger numbers, from exponentials to Busy Beavers.
http://www.scottaaronson.com/writings/bignumbers.html

Critical Math - Articles and images on recreational math from fractals and magic squares to mathemorchids and Galois.
http://www.gwywyr.com/articles/scimaths/

David Singmaster: List of Available Material - Teaching and recreational items in this personal collection.
http://anduin.eldar.org/~problemi/singmast/material.html

Recmath - Includes pages on magic squares and polyomino patterns and contains related java applets.
http://www3.sympatico.ca/diharper/

Recreational Mathematics Topics - By Steven Dutch. Symmetry, Crystals, Polyhedra and Tilings; Pythagorean triplets and other things about sums of powers; Geometry Classics.
http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/RECMATH/recmath.htm

Mathematical Quotation Server - A collection of mathematical quotations culled from many sources. You may conduct a keyword search through the quotation database.
http://math.furman.edu/~mwoodard/mquot.html

Look and Say Sequence Generator - Creates a special kind of summation formula created by John Conway.
http://www.btinternet.com/~se16/js/looknsay.htm

Mathematical Fiction - A list of mathematical fictional movies, books, stories, plays and shows. Split into categories including children's books. Can be sorted by mathematical content and literary quality.
http://math.cofc.edu/faculty/kasman/MATHFICT/

Origami Mathematics - Information on the mathematics of paper folding.
http://www.merrimack.edu/~thull/OrigamiMath.html

Math in the Movies - A guide to major motion pictures with scenes of real mathematics.
http://world.std.com/~reinhold/mathmovies.html

Mathematical Lego Sculptures - Designed and built by Andrew Lipson. Images and LDraw files.
http://www.andrewlipson.com/mathlego.htm

Rubik's Cube Lecture Notes - Notes on the mathematics of the Rubik's cube.
http://web.usna.navy.mil/~wdj/rubik_nts.htm

Fibonacci numbers and the Pascal triangle - The relation between Fibonacci numbers and Pascal's triangle. English/German/Serbian.
http://milan.milanovic.org/math/

Math Forum: 2001 Mathematics Game - A contest that asks to write all integers from 1 to 100 using only the digits 2,0,0,1 and arithmetic operations.
http://mathforum.org/~judyann/2001/

The Sound of Mathematics - Algorithmic music determined by mathematics and by the musical preferences of a human. General MIDI files.
http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/9349/

Sir Roger Penrose - An article about him and his interests and contributions to recreational mathematics.
http://www.worldofescher.com/misc/penrose.html

How To Manually Find A Square Root - The way to do find a square root without a calculator.
http://math.arizona.edu/~kerl/doc/square-root.html

Fun With Mathematics - Includes pages on the topics of primes, fibonacci numbers, PI computation, data encryption and links to calculator programs.
http://www.geocities.com/hjsmithh/

Mathematical Diversions - Mostly original diversions in mathematics and word play.
http://members.aol.com/s6sj7gt/mikehome.htm

Mathematik - Individual pages on different topics in Mathematics. Examples : group theory, dynamical systems theory, geometry or number theory.
http://www.mathematik.com/

Wade Edward Philpott - Profile and description of his mathematical games and puzzles.
http://www.gamepuzzles.com/wade.htm

Mathematische Basteleien - Topics include Flexagon, Soma Cube, Pentominos, Cube-it, Rubik's Cube, Froebel's Star, Tangram, House of Santa Claus, Chronogram, Numeric Palindromes, Latticework of Letters. English/German.
http://www.mathematische-basteleien.de/

Skytopia - Super Magnet - A colourful world built entirely using mathematical atoms and molecules. Pictures and animations demonstrate structures colliding and interacting. Animated GIF demonstrations.
http://www.skytopia.com/project/magnet/magnet.html

On the Puzzles with Polyhedra and Numbers - This is an article on a set of didactical games edited by the Portuguese Mathematical Society (SPM). [PDF]
http://gfm.cii.fc.ul.pt/people/jrezende/jr_poliedros-puzzles_en.pdf

Roman Numerals - Includes a introduction to Roman numerals including a translation of the digits used and a converter which can convert decimal to Roman numerals and vice versa.
http://www.novaroma.org/via_romana/numbers.html

The Aesthetics of Symmetry - A brief digression into how people perceive symmetrical patterns -- what makes them boring, interesting, or overly intricate
http://home.earthlink.net/~jdc24/symmetry.htm

Recreational Mathematics Forum - A forum for posting messages about math recreations. Hosted at Delphi.
http://forums.delphiforums.com/recmath/

Back to Square One - Includes description, solutions and other resources on this cube-like puzzle.
http://www.geocities.com/jaapsch/puzzles/square1.htm

Recreational Mathematics - Links collected at CAMEL, the Canadian Mathematical Society website.
http://camel.math.ca/Recreation/recreation.html

Table of Numbers Problem - Given a m * n rectangle, place all numbers from 1 to mn that minimizes the sum of the products of rows and columns (both in Spanish and English).
http://www.alpertron.com.ar/CUADRO.HTM

Mathematical Induction - A page of uncommon problems, most closely connected with number theory.
http://www.math.cl/induction.html

MAA Library List in Recreational Mathematics - Book list split into categories. Includes title, author, publisher and date information about each book.
http://www.maa.org/BLL/recmath.htm

Fast Arithmetic Tips - Three categories: defensive - know to check an answer, offensive - fast mental calculations, and math magic.
http://www.cut-the-knot.org/arithmetic/rapid/

HAKMEM - A collection of problems from MIT. Work reported herein was conducted at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology research program.
http://www.inwap.com/pdp10/hbaker/hakmem/hakmem.html

Sportlab - Combines high school and college math topics into sports applications.
http://www.geocities.com/sportlab/

MAT 007 I News - A newsletter edited by undergraduates of the Department of Mathematics at the University of Toronto. Includes some online copies.
http://www.math.toronto.edu/007/

Math Forum: 2002 Mathematics Game - A contest where the contestants have to write all integers from 1 to 100 using only the digits 2,0,0,2 and arithmetic operations.
http://mathforum.org/~judyann/2002/

Recreational and Educational Computing - A newsletter with programs, including optional supplemental PC disk. All back issues are available. Topics include puzzles and teasers, BASIC programming, letters, graphics, fractals, challenges, recreation, reviews, word-play, humor, tips, solutions, and Mathemagical Black Holes.
http://members.aol.com/DrMWEcker/REC.html

Math Forum: Algebra Problem of the Week - View this week's algebra problem or those of previous weeks.
http://mathforum.org/algpow/

Narcissistic Numbers - Those that are representable, in some way, by mathematically manipulating the digits of the numbers themselves.
http://www.geocities.com/~harveyh/narciss.htm

Math Magic By Computer - Interactive java puzzles and activities in different mathematical topics.
http://www.cut-the-knot.org/Curriculum/index.shtml#magic

Geometric Packing Problems - By Joseph Malkevitch: "Given one shape X how and when can one pack identical copies of this shape into another shape Y?"
http://www.york.cuny.edu/~malk/tidbits/tidbit-geometric-packing.html

Famous Curves - Visual animations of famous curves.
http://www.geocities.com/famouscurves/

The Eugène Strens Recreational Mathematics Collection - A special collection at the University of Calgary, including the archives of Martin Gardner. There is a searchable online index.
http://www.ucalgary.ca/lib-old/SpecColl/strens.htm

Fair Dice - Includes a complete list of all possible Fair Dice, most of which are not cubes. Includes pictures.
http://www.mathpuzzle.com/Fairdice.htm

CuriousMath - Include news, math tricks, methods, facts, trivia, mostly posted by users.
http://www.curiousmath.com/

Mathematical Problems - Problem Solving - Mathematics Hots (Problems) by Bruno Kevius
http://mathres.kevius.com/problem.html

A Mathematician's Aesthetics - In his classic A Mathematician's Apology, G. H. Hardy likened mathematics to poetry and painting. This site elaborates on Hardy's remark with quotations from Stevens, Klee, Fry, and Focillon. Links to related sites are given.
http://finitegeometry.org/sc/ph/aesthetics.html

Maze Classification and Algorithms - A short description of mazes and how to create them. Definition of different mazetypes and their algorithms.
http://www.astrolog.org/labyrnth/algrithm.htm