Content about “creativity”

In the game of Nim one player always has a winning strategy — it depends on an unusual way of adding numbers.

Asking good questions is an important part of doing maths. But what makes a good question?

Patterns and structures lie at the heart of mathematics, some even say they are mathematics. But how do they help us do mathematics?

At last month's Cambridge Science Festival we had great fun trying out a hands-on (or rather feet-on) activity based on one of our favourite puzzles – the bridges of Königsberg. We were really pleased with how it went, so we thought we'd share our game for others to put on at their own science or maths event.

Can we always find order in systems that are disordered? If so, just how large does a system have to be to contain a certain amount of order?

A Gömböc is a strange thing. It wriggles and rolls around with an apparent will of its own. Until quite recently, no-one knew whether Gömböcs even existed. Even now, Gábor Domokos, one of their discoverers, reckons that in some sense they barely exists at all.

Sometimes a mathematical object can be so big that, however disorderly we make the object, areas of order are bound to emerge. Imre Leader looks at the colourful world of Ramsey Theory.