Math, Puzzles and Computers

SPRING 2003

INSTRUCTOR: Fernando Rodriguez Villegas RLM 9.164, 471-1137, villegas@math.utexas.edu

COURSE WEB PAGE: http://www.ma.utexas.edu/users/villegas/S03/puzzles.html.

CLASS HOURS: Tue, Thu 11:00 -- 12:30 RLM 6.104

UNIQUE NUMBER: 56440

OFFICE HOURS: Wed 9:00 -- 11:00 or by appointment.

NOTE ON PREREQUISITES: Basic knowledge of abstract algebra and a minimal programming experience would be useful. If in doubt contact instructor.

COURSE DESCRIPTION: In this course we will discuss interesting mathematical puzzles and their underlying mathematics. We will also consider the use of the computer as a tool both to analyze complicated puzzles and to actually try them out (as Java applets say).

Some of the topics and puzzles we will discuss are: Nim and related games; Blet (involving group theory); fiver (involving linear algebra over a field of two elements); chinese rings (involving the Gray code); topological puzzles; simulated annealing and other algorithms to model some of the puzzles, etc. The course will involve some simple programming in TCL or Java. There is no text assigned for the class; instead handout notes will be provided covering each topic.

The course is part of the Department of Mathematics VIGRE grant from the NSF.

FIRST DAY HANDOUT

First day handout

CODE

Follow this link to find code (in various languages Tcl, Java, Python, etc.) written by students in the class.

CLASS NOTES

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