I am addicted. I keep coming back to John Conway's Game of Life. Years ago, I wrote a chapter about Life in Experiments with MATLAB. I wrote a three-part series about Life shortly after I started blogging. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. I have recently made significant enhancements to my MATLAB program for Life. I never seem to finish the code because I get diverted by actually using the program to explore the Universe. I invite you to join me. But, fair warning, you might become addicted too.... read more >>

This week’s post is by Reece Teramoto.... read more >>

Find the optimum traveling salesman tour through the capitals of the 48 contiguous states in the USA.... read more >>

David Wilson, from the Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand, has alerted me to this remarkable coincidence. Here is the "Burning Ship" from my post about fractals four weeks ago.... read more >>

Here are the first 12 integers from an infinite sequence defined by a deceptively simple rule. Can you see the pattern? Try to predict the next number in the sequence.... read more >>

If you follow this blog regularly, you know that I love fractals. I recently spent a pleasant afternoon in Nashua, New Hampshire, where my daughter Teresa introduced me to Gregory Searle, a fractal artist and computer geek. Here is his logo.... read more >>

I first saw this game years ago in the Exploratorium, a science museum in San Francisco. You are given a computer screen with two color patches and three sliders. One of the color patches is fixed. The sliders control the red, green and blue components of the other patch. Your task is to adjust the sliders until the two patches are the same color. It ain't easy.... read more >>

Today is Friday, the 13th. In many parts of the world, today is regarded as unlucky. But I want to revisit an old question: is today unlikely? What are the chances that the 13th of any month falls on a Friday? Computing the answer makes use of a new MATLAB® feature, the datetime method.... read more >>

Let me tell you about a beautiful, fractal curve, the Dragon Curve. Download my new dragon program from the File Exchange and follow along.... read more >>

Today is Easter Sunday. Why? How is the date of Easter determined?... read more >>