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02/09/2004: "Games"

When I was a kid one of the magazines we got every month was Scientific American. One of the features my dad, an actuary, enjoyed most was Mathematical Games. This went right over my head, and I can confidently say that the material still does, but it became part of the culture of our household, and something I learned from it must have settled into the back of my mind and rested there, because it's popping out again. One of my domains at work is setting up rooms for classes, meetings, and social events. This is not in itself interesting but it takes a certain amount of time, and it's generally solitary time. The mind has recognized these set-ups as geometry problems, and I find myself playing mathematical games with the points (chairs), squares (card tables), and circles (round tables) I am manipulating. I think of the numerical properties of the sixes and sevens I set out in rows, of the Platonic forms of the constellations of chairs around the tables, and tables around the axes of the room.