University of Northern Colorado

I think that we had a very successful event. We had rented a large suite at the University
of Northern Colorado University Center for 3 hours in Friday night. I estimate that the number
of attendees was between 65 and 70, with 57 registered, there were about 10 kids.  We had 10 table
stations with various activities such as
- Hexafleaxagons and Dragon models
- Gardner's mathematical puzzles
- logic puzzles (of the "Princess and the Tiger" type)
- Soma cubes puzzles
- the game of Sprout
- the game of Set
- Pentamino and tangram puzzles
- the Penrose tiles and patterns
- the Bagel slicing station and Möbius bands
We also had a number of special guests:
- a puzzle maker Doug Engel (puzzleatomic.com) who brought many wonderful hand-made puzzles.
- Alex Kasman, a Professor of Mathematics at the College of Charleston, was visiting Colorado that week
and he gave a nice short talk about Martin Gardner and Mathematical Fictions.
- we had a great magic show by "Worley the Wizard" that was built around many of Martin Gardner's tricks.


At the end of the event we raffled some of the posters, Gardner's books and other math/magic/puzzle books,
Alex Kasman book of Mathematical Fiction "Reality Conditions" (donated by "The Bookstop" bookstore)
and also quite a few puzzles kindly donated by Doug Engel.


Our student newspaper, the UNC Mirror, gave a nice coverage of the event:
http://www.uncmirror.com/news/gathering-in-honor-of-recreational-mathematician-1.2685800#.Tr_8w1ZZiLA


I am attaching some pictures, our poster, and the list of registered participants below.

Genoa (Italy) at the magic club "Club Lanterna Magica"

On Friday, October 21, the G4G – Celebration of Mind II was held at the magic club "Club Lanterna Magica". More than 40 people, including members and guests accompanied by children, were eager to participate to the evening in honor of Martin Gardner to celebrate together, in a simple but original way, the 97th anniversary of his birth.

While a nice PowerPoint presentation created by Marco Pruni (the magic club’s secretary) was being cast on the background of the scene, the moderator Carlo Cicala started the party with a pinch of humor and some hilarious gags (the impromptu improvisations of Carlo entertained the audience throughout the evening!).

Then, the young magician Adrian Mariani presented some impressive playing card routines accompanied by dynamic music. It was visually appealing and ended with a firework of cards! In the show that came after, the magician Alex performed in a funny way some neat close-up tricks with playing cards, coins and various other small objects.

Later, our friend Silvano Fuso, professor of chemistry and head of CICAP-Liguria (the Italian equivalent of the “Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP)” in the US), performed a science show he called “Magichimicofisica” and actively involved the public with a range of impressive experiments. Who said that science is boring?

Finally, Gianni Sarcone & Marie-Jo Waeber from Archimedes' Laboratory (TM) Project, organizers of the event, presented some magic games / origami involving impossible foldings and visual paradoxes, creating waves of surprise amongst the audience.

After the final show delicious refreshments were served and kept us all 'busy' until the end of the party. Hugh, the 'magician of sweet delicacies', surprised us with many varieties of snacks and tasty treats he made, both appetizing and sweet and a selection of wines.

It was a great evening indeed, fully in the spirit of Martin Gardner, with a lot of puzzles, friendly people and laughs!

A DVD of the event, produced by Marco Pruni, will be released in December 2011.

Trailer:

You can get further information and some photographs of the party at the following links:

http://clublanternamagica.blogspot.com/2011/11/2-anno-celebrativo-in-onore-martin.html

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150343764372762.357800.73313742761&type=3

 Best regards,

Gianni A. Sarcone & Marie-Jo Waeber

Archimedes' Laboratory (TM) Project

Educational content providers

http://www.archimedes-lab.org

contact@archimedes-lab.org

Boston, 2011

The second annual Boston Area Martin Gardner Celebration of Mind (www.g4g-com.org) was held in Brookline, Massachusetts at the Brookline Senior Center on Friday, October 21, 2011 from 6:30 to 9 PM. We had an excellent turnout!

Here is some information about our presenters:

MIT's Erik Demaine discussed new algorithms for Solving Rubik's Cube that he and Martin Demaine have been working on (http://erikdemaine.org/papers/Rubik_ESA2011/). A recent discovery in the world of the Rubik's cube is the proof of the minimum number of moves needed to solve any configuration of a 3x3x3 Rubik's cube. Erik and Martin are working on a generalized proof for 4x4x4 and larger Rubik's cubes, and presented their results to us. It was a fascinating talk. Some of the math was quite challenging!

George Heineman discussed his Sudoku variant, Sujiken. His new book about it is called Sudoku on the Half Shell (www.sujiken.com)

Alan Tannenbaum, a collector of Lewis Carroll and recent President of the Lewis Carroll Society, discussed the Society's recently-published tribute book to Martin Gardner, A Bouquet for the Gardener (http://www.lewiscarroll.org/2011/07/26/new-lcsna-martin-gardner-tribute-book-just-released/)

Glenn Iba discussed his "Monorail" Round Trip Puzzles. Glenn has published a book about his elegant Round Trip Puzzles and co-written an iPhone App called Monorail (http://glenniba.com/)

Tanya Khovanova gave a very funny presentation about "creative" ways that students (mis)interpret math problems. 

Chris Morgan presented some new thought puzzles from Dick Hess, which were first presented at the International Puzzle Party in Berlin in 2011.

Jane and John Kostick demonstrated their innovative puzzles to the group. (www.jjkostick.com/Jane_Kostick/tetraxis.html)

See photos of some of our presenters at http://www.morganpix.com/celebration-boston-2011

Sorry I wasn't able to photograph everyone -- my camera battery gave out on me!

Thanks again to everyone who attended!

- Chris Morgan

UK Celebration in Devon

The Uk Celebration of Mind hosted by James Dalgety.

Flexagon

Hello, here are the details and a small powerpoint on the event I hosted. Thank you.

-- Aneesh Natarajan