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Charlie likes tablecloths that use as many colours as possible, but insists that his tablecloths have some symmetry. Can you work out how many colours he needs for different tablecloth designs?
Proofs that there are only seven frieze patterns involve complicated group theory. The symmetries of a cylinder provide an easier approach.
Put your visualisation skills to the test by seeing which of these molecules can be rotated onto each other.
This problem provides training in visualisation and representation of 3D shapes. You will need to imagine rotating cubes, squashing cubes and even superimposing cubes!
The first part of an investigation into how to represent numbers using geometric transformations that ultimately leads us to discover numbers not on the number line.
I noticed this about streamers that have rotation symmetry : if there was one centre of rotation there always seems to be a second centre that also worked. Can you find a design that has only one centre of rotation ? Or if you thought that was impossible, could you say why ?
A design is repeated endlessly along a line - rather like a stream of paper coming off a roll. Make a strip that matches itself after rotation, or after reflection
Points off a rolling wheel make traces. What makes those traces have symmetry?
Investigate the transformations of the plane given by the 2 by 2 matrices with entries taking all combinations of values 0, -1 and +1.
Triangle ABC has equilateral triangles drawn on its edges. Points P, Q and R are the centres of the equilateral triangles. What can you prove about the triangle PQR?
Follow hints using a little coordinate geometry, plane geometry and trig to see how matrices are used to work on transformations of the plane.
Patterns that repeat in a line are strangely interesting. How many types are there and how do you tell one type from another?
A gallery of beautiful photos of cast ironwork friezes in Australia with a mathematical discussion of the classification of frieze patterns.
What is the volume of the solid formed by rotating this right angled triangle about the hypotenuse?
A red square and a blue square overlap. Is the area of the overlap always the same?
Mark a point P inside a closed curve. Is it always possible to find two points that lie on the curve, such that P is the mid point of the line joining these two points?
My train left London between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. and arrived in Paris between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. At the start and end of the journey the hands on my watch were in exactly the same positions but the minute hand and hour hand had swopped places. What time did the train leave London and how long did the journey take?
A security camera, taking pictures each half a second, films a cyclist going by. In the film, the cyclist appears to go forward while the wheels appear to go backwards. Why?
Prove that the graph of f(x) = x^3 - 6x^2 +9x +1 has rotational symmetry. Do graphs of all cubics have rotational symmetry?
A white cross is placed symmetrically in a red disc with the central square of side length sqrt 2 and the arms of the cross of length 1 unit. What is the area of the disc still showing?
The coke machine in college takes 50 pence pieces. It also takes a certain foreign coin of traditional design...
Find the shape and symmetries of the two pieces of this cut cube.