Wild Maths

Wild maths is mathematics without bounds. Here, you are free to roam and develop as a mathematician. We invite you to embark on a mathematical adventure!

Mathematics is a creative subject. It involves spotting patterns, making connections, finding new ways of looking at things and using what you already know in new contexts. Creative mathematicians play around with examples, draw pictures, have the courage to experiment and ask good questions.

We provide games, investigations, stories and spaces to explore, where we know there are discoveries to be made. Some have starting points, some a big question and others offer you a free space to investigate. Have a go at anything that catches your eye. You can find the full collection of activities, and explore challenges and investigations that are linked by some shared mathematical areas, by clicking on the 'Pathways' link in the top menu.

We'd love you to share your ideas and discoveries. You can share ideas via the comments at the bottom of each resource, or email us by clicking on the 'Share your discoveries' link at the bottom of each page.

Happy exploring!


Primes without 7s

The mathematician James Maynard has been counting prime numbers that don't have the number 7 as a digit. As he informed us at the 2016 European Congress of Mathematics, he has proved that there are infinitely many of them. The sequence starts with 2, 3, 5, 11, 13, 19, and then carries on forever.

Read more...

What's Possible - Kevin's Solution

Thank you to Kevin for sending us his thoughts on What's Possible.

You can download his work here.

 

 

 

 

Read more...

Playing with Trees

When you try to work out your best move in a game, you need to think ahead. If I make this move, what are the possible moves of my opponent? And what are my possible moves in response? This gets tricky very quickly, so it can be useful to draw a picture.

To see how, let's take a very simple game as an example: you have a stack of four coins and two players take turns to take away either one or two coins. The player who takes the last coin wins.

Now look at the image below:

Read more...

Is Greed Good?

 
Vending machines that don't return change are annoying, especially if the prices they demand aren't nice round figures you can make up with a single coin. If that's the case, then there's nothing but to cram through your wallet, fishing out the right coins to make up the amount exactly.
 
Read more...

Areas on a Grid

 
 
Take a look at the shapes on the interactivity below, and then draw some of your own.
You might want to print off some dotty paper.
 
 
Read more...
try

Seven Counters

 

All you need for this game is a friend and seven counters (or coins, biscuits, matches, or whatever you like).

It's a game for two players. Place the seven counters in a pile and decide who will go first. (In the next game, the other player will have the first turn.) Each player takes turns to take away either one or two counters. The player who takes the last counter wins.

Have fun playing the game a few times. 

Read more...
try