mscroggs.co.uk
mscroggs.co.uk

subscribe

Blog

 2012-11-02 
This is the second post in a series of posts about tube map folding.
Following my previous post, I did a little more folding.
The post was linked to on Going Underground's Blog where it received this comment:
In response to which I made this from 48 tube maps:
Also since the last post, I left 49 tetrahedrons at tube stations in a period of just over two weeks. Here's a pie chart showing which stations I left them at:
Of these 49, only three were still there the next time I passed through the station:
Due to the very low recapture rate, little more analysis can be done. Although I do wonder where they all ended up. Do you work at one of those stations and threw some away? Or did you pass through a station and pick one up? Or was it aliens and ghosts?
For my next trick, I want to gather a team of people, pick a day, and leave one at every station that day. If you want to join me, comment on this post, tweet me or comment on reddit and we can formulate a plan. Including your nearest station(s) in your message will help us sort out who takes which stations...
Previous post in series
This is the second post in a series of posts about tube map folding.
×1      ×4      ×4      ×1      ×1
(Click on one of these icons to react to this blog post)

You might also enjoy...

Comments

Comments in green were written by me. Comments in blue were not written by me.
 Add a Comment 


I will only use your email address to reply to your comment (if a reply is needed).

Allowed HTML tags: <br> <a> <small> <b> <i> <s> <sup> <sub> <u> <spoiler> <ul> <ol> <li> <logo>
To prove you are not a spam bot, please type "m" then "e" then "d" then "i" then "a" then "n" in the box below (case sensitive):
 2012-10-06 
This is the first post in a series of posts about tube map folding.
This week, after re-reading chapter two of Alex's Adventures in Numberland (where Alex learns to fold business cards into tetrahedrons, cubes and octahedrons) on the tube, I folded two tube maps into a tetrahedron:
Following this, I folded a cube, an octahedron and an icosahedron:
The tetrahedron, icosahedron and octahedron were all made in the same way, as seen in Numberland: folding the map in two, so that a pair of opposite corners meet, then folding the sides over to make a triangle:
In order to get an equilateral triangle at this point, paper with sides in a ratio of 1:√3 is required. Although it is not exact, the proportions of a tube map are close enough to this to get an almost equilateral triangle. Putting one of these pieces together with a mirror image piece (one where the other two corners were folded together at the start) gives a tetrahedron. The larger solids are obtained by using a larger number of maps.
The cube—also found in Numberland—can me made by placing two tube maps on each other at right angles and folding over the extra length:
Six of these pieces combine to give a cube.
Finally this morning, with a little help from the internet, I folded a dodecahedron, thus completing all the Platonic solids:
To spread the joy of folding tube maps, each time I take the tube, I am going to fold a tetrahedron from two maps and leave it on the maps when I leave the tube. I started this yesterday, leaving a tetrahedron on the maps at South Harrow. In the evening, it was still there:
Do you think it will still be there on Monday morning? How often do you think I will return to find a tetrahedron still there? I will be keeping a tetrahedron diary so we can find out the answers to these most important questions...
This is the first post in a series of posts about tube map folding.
      ×5      ×5      ×3      ×3
(Click on one of these icons to react to this blog post)

You might also enjoy...

Comments

Comments in green were written by me. Comments in blue were not written by me.
New test comment please ignore
Matthew
×5   ×4   ×6   ×5   ×5     Reply
Test comment please ignore
Matthew
×4   ×7   ×8   ×5   ×5     Reply
 Add a Comment 


I will only use your email address to reply to your comment (if a reply is needed).

Allowed HTML tags: <br> <a> <small> <b> <i> <s> <sup> <sub> <u> <spoiler> <ul> <ol> <li> <logo>
To prove you are not a spam bot, please type "equation" in the box below (case sensitive):

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 ▼
 2022 
▼ show ▼
 2021 
▼ show ▼
 2020 
▼ show ▼
 2019 
▼ show ▼
 2018 
▼ show ▼
 2017 
▼ show ▼
 2016 
▼ show ▼
 2015 
▼ show ▼
 2014 
▼ show ▼
 2013 
▼ show ▼
 2012 
▼ show ▼

Tags

palindromes pi approximation day python oeis sorting matrix of minors data visualisation logs errors javascript talking maths in public big internet math-off mathslogicbot braiding manchester science festival triangles trigonometry kings draughts sobolev spaces convergence asteroids pythagoras quadrilaterals signorini conditions weather station gaussian elimination finite element method flexagons game show probability coventry speed php world cup weak imposition stirling numbers latex hexapawn fence posts rust graphs london underground phd live stream rugby numerical analysis turtles curvature news polynomials sound crosswords machine learning geogebra arithmetic coins dataset craft people maths tennis approximation cross stitch squares data recursion folding tube maps binary captain scarlet warwick exponential growth kenilworth frobel logo propositional calculus games matt parker determinants golden ratio simultaneous equations pokémon light dragon curves map projections logic matrices standard deviation puzzles bots wave scattering nine men's morris newcastle crochet bluesky geometry a gamut of games runge's phenomenon guest posts game of life partridge puzzle crossnumbers inverse matrices wool final fantasy bodmas gather town sport rhombicuboctahedron pac-man london pascal's triangle stickers countdown misleading statistics zines interpolation wordle manchester fonts graph theory folding paper raspberry pi gerry anderson royal baby menace boundary element methods platonic solids datasaurus dozen video games go reuleaux polygons statistics inline code pi football ternary alphabets fractals friendly squares nonograms realhats mathsjam noughts and crosses electromagnetic field bempp thirteen pizza cutting martin gardner regular expressions error bars hats radio 4 advent calendar harriss spiral books accuracy hannah fry crossnumber tetris european cup pokémon wordle matrix of cofactors national lottery 24 hour maths matrix multiplication christmas card anscombe's quartet finite group chebyshev youtube christmas numbers mean edinburgh royal institution computational complexity plastic ratio chalkdust magazine preconditioning correlation mathsteroids ucl hyperbolic surfaces estimation chess tmip bubble bobble reddit cambridge probability dates databet dinosaurs arrangement puzzles the aperiodical golden spiral programming

Archive

Show me a random blog post
▼ show ▼
© Matthew Scroggs 2012–2026