mscroggs
.co.uk
mscroggs
.co.uk
blog
puzzles
academic
talks
contact
subscribe
↓ ☰ ↓
subscribe
Loading image...
Comment
Comments
Comments in green were written by me. Comments in blue were not written by me.
2025-12-25
@
Aisha
: Hm, I used exactly the same method for both of these days. I'm not sure if it lends itself to a nice clean formula, but it might! I'll share my approach after the contest is over!
Seth Cohen
on
/blog/120
Archive
Show me a random blog post
2026
May 2026
World Cup stickers 2026
Apr 2026
A new puzzle every day
Mixing Wordle with other games
Feb 2026
Christmas (2025) is over
2025
Dec 2025
Christmas card 2025
Nov 2025
Christmas (2025) is coming!
Sep 2025
The partridge puzzle
Aug 2025
TMiP 2025 puzzle hunt
Jun 2025
A nonogram alphabet
Mar 2025
How to write a crossnumber
Jan 2025
Christmas (2024) is over
Friendly squares
2024
Dec 2024
A regular expression Christmas puzzle
Christmas card 2024
Nov 2024
Christmas (2024) is coming!
Feb 2024
Zines, pt. 2
Jan 2024
Christmas (2023) is over
2023
▼ show ▼
▲ hide ▲
Dec 2023
Christmas card 2023
Nov 2023
Christmas (2023) is coming!
Zines
Sep 2023
TMiP 2023 puzzle hunt
May 2023
Chalkdust issue 17
Apr 2023
Logo Asteroids
Mar 2023
Mathsteroids on hyperbolic surfaces
Feb 2023
The databet
Jan 2023
Christmas (2022) is over
2022
▼ show ▼
▲ hide ▲
Dec 2022
Off-by-one errors
Christmas card 2022
Nov 2022
Christmas (2022) is coming!
Oct 2022
24 Hour Maths Game Show
Mar 2022
Approximating π
Feb 2022
Build your own MENACE
Jan 2022
Christmas (2021) is over
2021
▼ show ▼
▲ hide ▲
Dec 2021
Christmas card 2021
Nov 2021
Christmas (2021) is coming!
Sep 2021
TMiP 2021 puzzle hunt
May 2021
Close encounters of the second kind
Jan 2021
Christmas (2020) is over
2020
▼ show ▼
▲ hide ▲
Dec 2020
Christmas card 2020
Nov 2020
Christmas (2020) is coming!
Jul 2020
Happy -62+e+gτ-√3 Approximation Day!
May 2020
A surprising fact about quadrilaterals
Interesting tautologies
Mar 2020
Log-scaled axes
Feb 2020
PhD thesis, chapter ∞
PhD thesis, chapter 5
PhD thesis, chapter 4
PhD thesis, chapter 3
Inverting a matrix
PhD thesis, chapter 2
Jan 2020
PhD thesis, chapter 1
Gaussian elimination
Matrix multiplication
Christmas (2019) is over
2019
▼ show ▼
▲ hide ▲
Dec 2019
Visualising MENACE's learning
Christmas card 2019
Nov 2019
Christmas (2019) is coming!
Sep 2019
A non-converging LaTeX document
TMiP 2019 treasure punt
Jul 2019
Big Internet Math-Off stickers 2019
Jun 2019
Proving a conjecture
Apr 2019
Harriss and other spirals
Mar 2019
realhats
Jan 2019
Christmas (2018) is over
2018
▼ show ▼
▲ hide ▲
Dec 2018
Christmas cross stitch
MENACE in fiction
Christmas card 2018
Nov 2018
Christmas (2018) is coming!
Sep 2018
Runge's Phenomenon
Jul 2018
World Cup stickers 2018, pt. 3
Mathsteroids
Jun 2018
World Cup stickers 2018, pt. 2
May 2018
A bad Puzzle for Today
Apr 2018
Building MENACEs for other games
Mar 2018
A 20,000-to-1 baby?
World Cup stickers 2018
Jan 2018
Origins of World War I
Christmas (2017) is over
2017
▼ show ▼
▲ hide ▲
Dec 2017
Christmas card 2017
Nov 2017
Christmas (2017) is coming!
MENACE at Manchester Science Festival
Jun 2017
Big Ben Strikes Again
Mar 2017
The end of coins of constant width
Dragon curves II
Feb 2017
The importance of estimation error
Jan 2017
Is MEDUSA the new BODMAS?
2016
▼ show ▼
▲ hide ▲
Dec 2016
Christmas (2016) is over
Video game surfaces
Christmas card 2016
Nov 2016
Christmas (2016) is coming!
Oct 2016
Logical contradictions
Palindromic dates
Sep 2016
Tube map kaleidocycles
Jul 2016
Solving the cross diagonal cover problem
Jun 2016
Braiding, pt. 2
Braiding, pt. 1
Making names in Life
May 2016
Euro 2016 stickers
Mar 2016
Proving Pythagoras' theorem
Dragon curves
The
Mathematical Games
of Martin Gardner
Jan 2016
Christmas (2015) is over
2015
▼ show ▼
▲ hide ▲
Nov 2015
Christmas (2015) is coming!
Oct 2015
How to kick a conversion
How much will I win on the new National Lottery?
Aug 2015
How OEISbot works
MENACE
Mar 2015
Optimal Pac-Man
Tube map stellated rhombicuboctahedron
Logic bot, pt. 2
Design your own flexagon
Jan 2015
Tube map Platonic solids, pt. 3
2014
▼ show ▼
▲ hide ▲
Nov 2014
Logic bot
Sep 2014
Electromagnetic Field talk
Jun 2014
Tennis maths
May 2014
World Cup stickers
Apr 2014
Countdown probability, pt. 2
Countdown probability
Mar 2014
New machine unfriendly £1 coin, pt. 2
New machine unfriendly £1 coin
2013
▼ show ▼
▲ hide ▲
Dec 2013
Assorted christmaths
Pointless probability
Jul 2013
"Uncanny" royal coincidence
Raspberry Pi weather station
2012
▼ show ▼
▲ hide ▲
Nov 2012
Tube map Platonic solids, pt. 2
Oct 2012
Tube map Platonic solids
Tags
advent calendar
football
plastic ratio
sobolev spaces
numerical analysis
captain scarlet
inverse matrices
javascript
polynomials
data
propositional calculus
binary
stickers
simultaneous equations
go
golden ratio
approximation
countdown
pi
geometry
dinosaurs
signorini conditions
error bars
arrangement puzzles
inline code
wool
programming
stirling numbers
triangles
live stream
light
interpolation
preconditioning
finite group
big internet math-off
friendly squares
determinants
machine learning
tennis
pac-man
a gamut of games
matrix of cofactors
statistics
christmas
talking maths in public
warwick
frobel
nonograms
sport
dates
anscombe's quartet
asteroids
errors
royal baby
bempp
tetris
guest posts
pythagoras
chalkdust magazine
reuleaux polygons
standard deviation
speed
noughts and crosses
turtles
latex
graphs
radio 4
trigonometry
boundary element methods
manchester science festival
arithmetic
dataset
regular expressions
logo
datasaurus dozen
matt parker
bodmas
game of life
gerry anderson
harriss spiral
crossnumbers
mean
games
pascal's triangle
finite element method
palindromes
weak imposition
cambridge
draughts
crochet
pizza cutting
databet
youtube
curvature
chebyshev
logs
sorting
coventry
hyperbolic surfaces
runge's phenomenon
weather station
manchester
coins
rugby
matrices
mathsjam
mathsteroids
zines
rhombicuboctahedron
wave scattering
nine men's morris
fonts
tmip
bluesky
news
numbers
correlation
european cup
gather town
alphabets
matrix of minors
estimation
squares
people maths
raspberry pi
puzzles
fractals
chess
hats
partridge puzzle
24 hour maths
hexapawn
books
thirteen
pokémon
christmas card
matrix multiplication
royal institution
folding paper
logic
newcastle
accuracy
edinburgh
computational complexity
pokémon wordle
sound
fence posts
graph theory
folding tube maps
mathslogicbot
menace
craft
recursion
dragon curves
wordle
probability
python
bots
kings
london underground
crosswords
national lottery
martin gardner
rust
golden spiral
convergence
ucl
hannah fry
quadrilaterals
reddit
braiding
exponential growth
world cup
data visualisation
electromagnetic field
platonic solids
crossnumber
realhats
pi approximation day
gaussian elimination
london
kenilworth
misleading statistics
flexagons
cross stitch
final fantasy
map projections
ternary
the aperiodical
php
bubble bobble
game show probability
video games
phd
geogebra
oeis
Archive
Show me a random blog post
▼ show ▼
▲ hide ▲
2026
May 2026
World Cup stickers 2026
Apr 2026
A new puzzle every day
Mixing Wordle with other games
Feb 2026
Christmas (2025) is over
2025
Dec 2025
Christmas card 2025
Nov 2025
Christmas (2025) is coming!
Sep 2025
The partridge puzzle
Aug 2025
TMiP 2025 puzzle hunt
Jun 2025
A nonogram alphabet
Mar 2025
How to write a crossnumber
Jan 2025
Christmas (2024) is over
Friendly squares
2024
Dec 2024
A regular expression Christmas puzzle
Christmas card 2024
Nov 2024
Christmas (2024) is coming!
Feb 2024
Zines, pt. 2
Jan 2024
Christmas (2023) is over
2023
▼ show ▼
▲ hide ▲
Dec 2023
Christmas card 2023
Nov 2023
Christmas (2023) is coming!
Zines
Sep 2023
TMiP 2023 puzzle hunt
May 2023
Chalkdust issue 17
Apr 2023
Logo Asteroids
Mar 2023
Mathsteroids on hyperbolic surfaces
Feb 2023
The databet
Jan 2023
Christmas (2022) is over
2022
▼ show ▼
▲ hide ▲
Dec 2022
Off-by-one errors
Christmas card 2022
Nov 2022
Christmas (2022) is coming!
Oct 2022
24 Hour Maths Game Show
Mar 2022
Approximating π
Feb 2022
Build your own MENACE
Jan 2022
Christmas (2021) is over
2021
▼ show ▼
▲ hide ▲
Dec 2021
Christmas card 2021
Nov 2021
Christmas (2021) is coming!
Sep 2021
TMiP 2021 puzzle hunt
May 2021
Close encounters of the second kind
Jan 2021
Christmas (2020) is over
2020
▼ show ▼
▲ hide ▲
Dec 2020
Christmas card 2020
Nov 2020
Christmas (2020) is coming!
Jul 2020
Happy -62+e+gτ-√3 Approximation Day!
May 2020
A surprising fact about quadrilaterals
Interesting tautologies
Mar 2020
Log-scaled axes
Feb 2020
PhD thesis, chapter ∞
PhD thesis, chapter 5
PhD thesis, chapter 4
PhD thesis, chapter 3
Inverting a matrix
PhD thesis, chapter 2
Jan 2020
PhD thesis, chapter 1
Gaussian elimination
Matrix multiplication
Christmas (2019) is over
2019
▼ show ▼
▲ hide ▲
Dec 2019
Visualising MENACE's learning
Christmas card 2019
Nov 2019
Christmas (2019) is coming!
Sep 2019
A non-converging LaTeX document
TMiP 2019 treasure punt
Jul 2019
Big Internet Math-Off stickers 2019
Jun 2019
Proving a conjecture
Apr 2019
Harriss and other spirals
Mar 2019
realhats
Jan 2019
Christmas (2018) is over
2018
▼ show ▼
▲ hide ▲
Dec 2018
Christmas cross stitch
MENACE in fiction
Christmas card 2018
Nov 2018
Christmas (2018) is coming!
Sep 2018
Runge's Phenomenon
Jul 2018
World Cup stickers 2018, pt. 3
Mathsteroids
Jun 2018
World Cup stickers 2018, pt. 2
May 2018
A bad Puzzle for Today
Apr 2018
Building MENACEs for other games
Mar 2018
A 20,000-to-1 baby?
World Cup stickers 2018
Jan 2018
Origins of World War I
Christmas (2017) is over
2017
▼ show ▼
▲ hide ▲
Dec 2017
Christmas card 2017
Nov 2017
Christmas (2017) is coming!
MENACE at Manchester Science Festival
Jun 2017
Big Ben Strikes Again
Mar 2017
The end of coins of constant width
Dragon curves II
Feb 2017
The importance of estimation error
Jan 2017
Is MEDUSA the new BODMAS?
2016
▼ show ▼
▲ hide ▲
Dec 2016
Christmas (2016) is over
Video game surfaces
Christmas card 2016
Nov 2016
Christmas (2016) is coming!
Oct 2016
Logical contradictions
Palindromic dates
Sep 2016
Tube map kaleidocycles
Jul 2016
Solving the cross diagonal cover problem
Jun 2016
Braiding, pt. 2
Braiding, pt. 1
Making names in Life
May 2016
Euro 2016 stickers
Mar 2016
Proving Pythagoras' theorem
Dragon curves
The
Mathematical Games
of Martin Gardner
Jan 2016
Christmas (2015) is over
2015
▼ show ▼
▲ hide ▲
Nov 2015
Christmas (2015) is coming!
Oct 2015
How to kick a conversion
How much will I win on the new National Lottery?
Aug 2015
How OEISbot works
MENACE
Mar 2015
Optimal Pac-Man
Tube map stellated rhombicuboctahedron
Logic bot, pt. 2
Design your own flexagon
Jan 2015
Tube map Platonic solids, pt. 3
2014
▼ show ▼
▲ hide ▲
Nov 2014
Logic bot
Sep 2014
Electromagnetic Field talk
Jun 2014
Tennis maths
May 2014
World Cup stickers
Apr 2014
Countdown probability, pt. 2
Countdown probability
Mar 2014
New machine unfriendly £1 coin, pt. 2
New machine unfriendly £1 coin
2013
▼ show ▼
▲ hide ▲
Dec 2013
Assorted christmaths
Pointless probability
Jul 2013
"Uncanny" royal coincidence
Raspberry Pi weather station
2012
▼ show ▼
▲ hide ▲
Nov 2012
Tube map Platonic solids, pt. 2
Oct 2012
Tube map Platonic solids
Tags
advent calendar
dinosaurs
data
dataset
royal institution
chalkdust magazine
manchester science festival
pascal's triangle
fence posts
finite group
squares
mean
martin gardner
binary
folding paper
standard deviation
big internet math-off
matt parker
stirling numbers
manchester
live stream
coventry
numbers
tetris
royal baby
tennis
regular expressions
computational complexity
matrix of minors
newcastle
boundary element methods
european cup
youtube
phd
golden ratio
game show probability
tmip
simultaneous equations
curvature
inverse matrices
talking maths in public
wordle
radio 4
sound
weather station
plastic ratio
dragon curves
cross stitch
gerry anderson
javascript
sport
light
php
crosswords
ucl
matrix of cofactors
mathslogicbot
puzzles
bots
probability
books
map projections
triangles
the aperiodical
arithmetic
hannah fry
numerical analysis
realhats
countdown
recursion
trigonometry
london
geogebra
pizza cutting
platonic solids
mathsteroids
bluesky
pi
a gamut of games
cambridge
alphabets
programming
asteroids
matrix multiplication
coins
oeis
wool
warwick
error bars
electromagnetic field
runge's phenomenon
propositional calculus
christmas card
python
raspberry pi
noughts and crosses
thirteen
captain scarlet
sobolev spaces
reddit
fractals
braiding
errors
bubble bobble
reuleaux polygons
frobel
rhombicuboctahedron
people maths
mathsjam
pokémon
data visualisation
interpolation
pi approximation day
accuracy
folding tube maps
news
kenilworth
statistics
sorting
turtles
finite element method
ternary
logo
hexapawn
misleading statistics
draughts
palindromes
chebyshev
gaussian elimination
rust
zines
hats
christmas
game of life
machine learning
pokémon wordle
gather town
polynomials
fonts
weak imposition
arrangement puzzles
craft
approximation
anscombe's quartet
guest posts
graphs
bempp
crossnumbers
nine men's morris
dates
london underground
exponential growth
games
pac-man
databet
video games
24 hour maths
final fantasy
inline code
wave scattering
flexagons
pythagoras
hyperbolic surfaces
crochet
harriss spiral
chess
graph theory
world cup
datasaurus dozen
convergence
quadrilaterals
estimation
geometry
latex
logic
logs
kings
determinants
football
rugby
bodmas
stickers
nonograms
correlation
national lottery
edinburgh
preconditioning
friendly squares
matrices
partridge puzzle
menace
golden spiral
go
speed
crossnumber
signorini conditions
© Matthew Scroggs 2012–2026
on /blog/120