WARM-UP. 1. What is recreational mathematics?

1. What is recreational mathematics?

Label the pictures below with the names: Sudoku, Rubik’s cube, tangrams, origami, Towers of Hanoi. Have you ever tried any of these? Which of these do you think is the most difficult to do?

2. Do you agree with the English puzzlist and mathematician Henry Dudeney who wrote: “A good puzzle, like virtue, is its own reward.”?

3. What do you think about numerology? Do you agree with Sir Thomas Browne who “ … admired the mystical way of Pythagoras, and the secret magic of numbers”? Do you believe that numbers have mystical significance?

4. What magic figures do you know? Why are they called magic?

5. Work in small groups. In three minutes, write down a list of things which are usually round and/or square.

6. Look at the two paintings. What do they have in common? Do you like them?

Robert Delaunay Joie de vivre (The Joy of Life), 1930 Georges Pompidou Center, Paris	Pablo Picasso Three musicians, 1921 New York Museum of Modern Art