Newton Day

I spent most of 25 December, Newton Day, appropriately doing some mathematics.

I've put together all my pages of notes on knight's tours to see if I can fit them into a reasonably sized book of around 250 pages. At present it is at around 350 pages, but further selection and editing should get it down to the right size. The pages are formatted to standard A4 size with inch margins, which allows four chessboard diagrams across the page.

The main problem I've had with the whole idea is to get the right balance between History and Theory. I now start with a chapter headed Chessics which introduces the theory, follow this with a chapter on lateral and diagonal movers, i.e. wazir and king tours, and then get to the knight, with more theory and tours by longer leapers and other pieces coming after. I'm not sure I like splitting the Theory section like this, but I do feel I'm making progress.

I had some items on knight's tours back in the first issue of Chessics published in 1976, which is now 33 years ago. I'm rather a slow worker.