I've received requests from the British Library to allow my Knight's Tour Notes and Mayhematics websites to be "archived". I think this is a result of requests sent to them by John Beasley with regard to the archiving of the Chess Variants material and the BCVS site.
The address of the archive is: http://www.webarchive.org.uk/ukwa/. I've received emails acknowledging receipt of the online forms that I filled in, but I expect it will be some time before the sites actually appear in the archive. I took the precaution of removing some of the illustrations from the Biographies section of the Mayhematics site, in case they do not meet the copyright requirements.
Wednesday, 24 November 2010
Monday, 8 November 2010
Five-Directional Knight's Tour Problem
It's over a month since I posted a message on this Diary, but since I seem to be the only person to whom it is of any interest that probably won't have been noticed.
The most interesting occurrence of the past month was that one of my correspondents. Harold Cataquet, sent me details of a new knight's tour discovery by Jonathan Welton from Crowthorne, Berks. This can be presented in the form of a puzzle:
There is just one solution, apart from rotations and reflections. I was able to confirm this by trying to construct a tour. It required only one page of workings on a sheet of squared paper, and involved 21 diagrams though this is far more than is really necessary. I won't publish the answer here, since Mr Welton will probably want it to appear somewhere in print first.
However here is an open-tour solution that I found, starting and finishing on adjacent cells.
17 32 21 28 47 52 45 50
20 29 18 15 22 49 26 53
33 16 31 48 27 46 51 44
30 19 34 23 14 43 54 25
09 38 13 42 55 24 59 04
12 35 10 07 60 03 64 01
39 08 37 56 41 62 05 58
36 11 40 61 06 57 02 63
This was my first attempt at finding a solution on 25 October.
The most interesting occurrence of the past month was that one of my correspondents. Harold Cataquet, sent me details of a new knight's tour discovery by Jonathan Welton from Crowthorne, Berks. This can be presented in the form of a puzzle:
To construct a closed knight's tour of the standard chessboard that uses moves in exactly five of the eight possible knight-move directions.
There is just one solution, apart from rotations and reflections. I was able to confirm this by trying to construct a tour. It required only one page of workings on a sheet of squared paper, and involved 21 diagrams though this is far more than is really necessary. I won't publish the answer here, since Mr Welton will probably want it to appear somewhere in print first.
However here is an open-tour solution that I found, starting and finishing on adjacent cells.
17 32 21 28 47 52 45 50
20 29 18 15 22 49 26 53
33 16 31 48 27 46 51 44
30 19 34 23 14 43 54 25
09 38 13 42 55 24 59 04
12 35 10 07 60 03 64 01
39 08 37 56 41 62 05 58
36 11 40 61 06 57 02 63
This was my first attempt at finding a solution on 25 October.
Sunday, 3 October 2010
Website Improvement and Expansion
This week I've been making some major additions and revisions to my mayhematics website. In the first place I have reverted to an older style for the home page, using the rainbow colours to classify the subjects into six sections, and doing away with the three intermediate index pages. I'd really like the six sections, and the centre one, to be circular but square is the best I can do at present.
The next big change is to the Variant Chess section, due to the closure of the BCVS. All 64 back issues of Variant Chess magazine are now available for download from the Variant Chess page. Most of the labour of scanning the magazines, apart from the first eight issues, was done by Peter Fayers to whom thanks are due. At the bottom there is also a link to the list of books and journals which I collected over the years and were part of the BCVS Library, but which I'm now calling the Variant Chess Library. It occupies a bookcase and some boxes in the entrance passage to my flat.
The other change is the addition of a series of pages of short biographies, mainly of radical reformers in the humanist movement, but also including notable scientists and others (there will be many more to add). Some of these were written for the Leicester Secular Society website, and others I had prepared as notes for a series of talks on the History of Humanism. Many have now appeared in shorter form on the Humanist Heritage site maintained by Hamish Macpherson for the BHA.
All in all a very productive week.
The next big change is to the Variant Chess section, due to the closure of the BCVS. All 64 back issues of Variant Chess magazine are now available for download from the Variant Chess page. Most of the labour of scanning the magazines, apart from the first eight issues, was done by Peter Fayers to whom thanks are due. At the bottom there is also a link to the list of books and journals which I collected over the years and were part of the BCVS Library, but which I'm now calling the Variant Chess Library. It occupies a bookcase and some boxes in the entrance passage to my flat.
The other change is the addition of a series of pages of short biographies, mainly of radical reformers in the humanist movement, but also including notable scientists and others (there will be many more to add). Some of these were written for the Leicester Secular Society website, and others I had prepared as notes for a series of talks on the History of Humanism. Many have now appeared in shorter form on the Humanist Heritage site maintained by Hamish Macpherson for the BHA.
All in all a very productive week.
Sunday, 26 September 2010
Variant Chess: End of an Era
This Saturday we held the last AMG of the British Chess Variants Society. John Beasley and Peter Fayers came to my flat to settle the final details. So Variant Chess magazine, which I started in 1990, has now also come to an end. The final issue, appropriately number 64, came out in August. Thanks to everyone who has been involved over the 20 years.
Afterwards a small variants tourney was held at Hastings and St Leonards Chess Club. There were five players, so there were five rounds, with the non-playing person in each round choosing the variant for the others to play. The variants chosen were: 1. A game using the back-row sequence BRNKQNRB, 2. Progressive chess, 3. Avalanche chess, 4. Balanced Marseilles chess, 5. Cylinder chess.
The players and their scores were: George Jelliss 0, Bill Penfold 1, Rasa Norinkeviciute 2, John Beasley 3, Patrick Donovan 4. So Patrick won the prize which was a bound set of Chessics magazine. My best game was in the Progressive chess where Rasa had to find a difficult eight-move series to give checkmate. Thanks are particularly due to Mr Penfold for making the effort to master the unfamiliar rules, particularly of the cylinder variant, and to the Club for permitting our use of the venue.
Afterwards a small variants tourney was held at Hastings and St Leonards Chess Club. There were five players, so there were five rounds, with the non-playing person in each round choosing the variant for the others to play. The variants chosen were: 1. A game using the back-row sequence BRNKQNRB, 2. Progressive chess, 3. Avalanche chess, 4. Balanced Marseilles chess, 5. Cylinder chess.
The players and their scores were: George Jelliss 0, Bill Penfold 1, Rasa Norinkeviciute 2, John Beasley 3, Patrick Donovan 4. So Patrick won the prize which was a bound set of Chessics magazine. My best game was in the Progressive chess where Rasa had to find a difficult eight-move series to give checkmate. Thanks are particularly due to Mr Penfold for making the effort to master the unfamiliar rules, particularly of the cylinder variant, and to the Club for permitting our use of the venue.
Friday, 17 September 2010
Weekend in Leicester
On Saturday 11 September I took the train to Charing Cross, walked to Victoria and bought a single National Express coach ticket to Leicester, where I had booked to stay two nights at self-catering apartments by the Grand Union Canal, as illustrated here, although my apartment in fact proved to be on the other side, overlooking the road. The attraction was to revisit my old haunts in Leicester where I lived for nine years, meet some old friends, and to attend the Secular Hall Open Day on the Sunday. (See Hastings Humanists for a brief report). The idea of buying a single ticket was that I might decide to stay a little longer, but in the event I returned on the Monday. The 11:45 am coach I booked on was about half an hour late, but I wasn't really in any hurry. I sat next to a lady who said nothing, and busied myself mostly with doing the puzzles in the Times. At Victoria Coach Station the lady seemed rather agitated to find her connection on to Portsmouth, and I did my best to direct her, but now feel somewhat guilty that I didn't actually see her to the right bay, or converse with her on the trip.
There didn't seem to be any trains scheduled from Victoria to Hastings so I walked again to Charing Cross. This is quite a pleasant walk, via Buckingham Palace, St James' Park, Admiralty Arch and Trafalgar Square, though I was carrying too much in the form of provisions I had bought, but over-estimated, for self-catering purposes in Leicester. The next day I felt quite tired. I don't suppose I will be going back to Leicester again for some time; there is the AGM of the Society in November, but I don't think I want to get involved in their politics again.
Friday, 3 September 2010
A Day Out in Brighton
Yesterday, 1st September, I took the train to Brighton with the aim of attending the meeting in the evening of the Brighton and Hove Humanist Society. The speaker was Denis Cobell, a former President of the NSS, on "Why I am Not a Christian", though in fact it was mostly about his upbringing, in the Brighton area, within an Evangelical family.
Since the talk only began at 8 pm I spent most of the three hours preceding in the Odeon cinema, watching a very noisy film, "Inception" starring Leonardo DiCaprio which was about people who could set up realistic dream worlds, and dreams within dreams. Coming out at the end I wondered if I was back in the real world or not, especially as the way out of the cinema was something of a maze.
Another reason for going to Brighton was to visit the Apple store with a view to perhaps changing my computer for an iMac or MacBook. However the only address I had was Churchill Square which proved to be a large shopping mall, and despite walking round most of it, never found the Apple store, or any map of the place! I did get some fish and chips at the BHS restaurant, and a couple of cotton Oxford shirts at the M&S store opposite (since they don't seem to be available in Hastings).
I also found time to sun myself on the beach for a while, though Brighton Beach was indeed very crowded, as it is traditionally supposed to be.
Since the talk only began at 8 pm I spent most of the three hours preceding in the Odeon cinema, watching a very noisy film, "Inception" starring Leonardo DiCaprio which was about people who could set up realistic dream worlds, and dreams within dreams. Coming out at the end I wondered if I was back in the real world or not, especially as the way out of the cinema was something of a maze.
Another reason for going to Brighton was to visit the Apple store with a view to perhaps changing my computer for an iMac or MacBook. However the only address I had was Churchill Square which proved to be a large shopping mall, and despite walking round most of it, never found the Apple store, or any map of the place! I did get some fish and chips at the BHS restaurant, and a couple of cotton Oxford shirts at the M&S store opposite (since they don't seem to be available in Hastings).
I also found time to sun myself on the beach for a while, though Brighton Beach was indeed very crowded, as it is traditionally supposed to be.
Sunday, 22 August 2010
Chess Talk and other Odd Events
I've spent most of this week preparing a booklet on "Simple Chess Variants" for a talk at Hastings and St Leonards Chess Club. Although I only received one email from a member who said he would come, in the end the meeting went off reasonably well, since five others turned up at least for part of the time. I was only able to complete two bound copies of the booklet since my printer ran out of ink. I'll do some more later. It came to 14 A4 pages.
After the talk we tried out some variants. Progressive chess seems to be the most familiar and popular. I had some success with Cylinder chess. One player was familiar with Rifle chess, but considered that normal captures should also be allowed. A try-out with Double King chess was unexciting; the rules for checkmate of the two kings need to be clarified.
The previous week, having watched the first of the new Sherlock series on a flat-screen TV at the hotel in Lincoln, I decided to spend some money on a new television set, since the one I have is just a 14" portable. The local shop, Adams and Jarrett, supplied me with a 22" screen for under £200, made in India. I watched the first two parts of the "Matrix" series on successive nights, but missed the final part since the Richard Dawkins programme about Faith Schools was on at the same time. No doubt I'll get another opportunity to see the Matrix in future. The crazy scene where Neo fights ever-increasing clones of Agent Smith made me laugh. It reminded me of the old elaborate Busby Berkeley dance sequences.
As part of the rearrangements to put in the TV screen I put an old floor-standing pot plant, which came with the flat, outside the front of the building, where I thought it might do better. Within a couple of days it had vanished! Why would anyone steal an old browning pot plant, did they just want the pot? How did they take it? It was about four feet tall, awkward to carry any distance. It hasn't been dumped nearby. Are there gangs of professional plant stealers about? I didn't report the theft to the Police since I don't particularly want the plant back, and don't want to waste police time.
After the talk we tried out some variants. Progressive chess seems to be the most familiar and popular. I had some success with Cylinder chess. One player was familiar with Rifle chess, but considered that normal captures should also be allowed. A try-out with Double King chess was unexciting; the rules for checkmate of the two kings need to be clarified.
The previous week, having watched the first of the new Sherlock series on a flat-screen TV at the hotel in Lincoln, I decided to spend some money on a new television set, since the one I have is just a 14" portable. The local shop, Adams and Jarrett, supplied me with a 22" screen for under £200, made in India. I watched the first two parts of the "Matrix" series on successive nights, but missed the final part since the Richard Dawkins programme about Faith Schools was on at the same time. No doubt I'll get another opportunity to see the Matrix in future. The crazy scene where Neo fights ever-increasing clones of Agent Smith made me laugh. It reminded me of the old elaborate Busby Berkeley dance sequences.
As part of the rearrangements to put in the TV screen I put an old floor-standing pot plant, which came with the flat, outside the front of the building, where I thought it might do better. Within a couple of days it had vanished! Why would anyone steal an old browning pot plant, did they just want the pot? How did they take it? It was about four feet tall, awkward to carry any distance. It hasn't been dumped nearby. Are there gangs of professional plant stealers about? I didn't report the theft to the Police since I don't particularly want the plant back, and don't want to waste police time.
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