The P vs. NP conjecture in complexity theory is one of the most prominent open problems in mathematics and computer science. There are many reasons for this. It is reasonably easy to get an intuitive …

John Hopcroft is an ACM A.M Turing Award laureate, which he won in 1986 together with Robert E. Tarjan for fundamental achievements in the design and analysis of algorithms and data structures. He distinguished himself …

In a post last April, I described some of the mathematics behind combinatorics – the branch of mathematics concerned with counting all the different ways to do something. Often, this kind of maths appears in …

Parallel to the Heidelberg Laureate Forum, the Heidelberg Laureate Forum Foundation organizes an exhibition related to mathematics or computer science, as part of the accompanying program of the HLF. In 2019 it was the mathematics …

A friend of mine recently kindly made me a present, using their 3D printer – a puzzle made up of 21 pieces, three each of seven different shapes. The statement of the puzzle is as …

Often at this time of year, people are visiting family, and sometimes traditional games and toys come out to occupy your time. If you’ve got a deck of playing cards handy, you can perform a …

Here are the solutions to the eight candle puzzles we posted earlier. The candles cost €1.05, and the matches cost €0.05. Every 30 seconds the number of people whose candles are lit doubles, starting with …

Around this time of year, people light a lot of candles in celebration of the season. Here is a selection of candle-based maths puzzles you can share with friends and family! We’ll share the solutions …

Squares – shapes with four right-angle corners, and four equal-length sides – are lovely. Mathematicians especially love them, as evidenced by the number of nice geometrical and numerical constructions based on squares. For example, a …