With regret we shall have to cancel tonight’s meeting due to diary clashes.

You can still follow MathsJam via Twitter: @MathsJam

Next meeting will be on 17 November.

The season is changing: Summer seems to have left us abruptly and Autumn is upon us.  As the new academic year gets underway at the University of Portsmouth, we shall miss three members of our MathsJam team who have gone to pastures new.  We shall raise a glass to Andy, Colleen & Paul tonight and wish them all the very best in their new posts.

Will Perudo be the same again?

Perudo, sometimes known as Liar’s Dice, was the game of choice at Portsmouth MathsJam last night.  This is one of the Group’s favorites and given that we are in week 5 of busy term, the much needed “boost” hit the spot.

Perudo is also known as “Liar’s Dice”.  The aim is to predict the number of dice (1s, 2s, 3s etc) that will be thrown out of the 25 initially available.  There are rules governing the way in which the predictions are made which add to the challenge.  Strategy is everything as to a certain extent is the seating plan.  From last night’s match I can reveal that the Perudo Jedi rose again – only to lose the Force in the second to last round but I am in no doubt he will return.

There was discussion of forthcoming meetings:  November Portsmouth MathsJam meeting will be on 20 November as usual  BUT the December meeting will be on WEDNESDAY 12 December and we plan to go for a festive supper.

The Summer holidays are over, schools and colleges have already started the new academic year.  The University of Portsmouth has welcomed students back this week.  Portsmouth MathsJam kept going over the Summer with meetings in both July and August, thanks are due to regular MathsJammer Nick for making sure that the long table at Kings Street Tavern was occupied.

Next meeting 18th September 2012 from 7.30 pm onwards.  Do come along and join us, why not bring a puzzle along to share?

Portsmouth MathsJammers gathered  at the new venue, King Street Tavern  We were made to feel very welcome and some of us partook of the excellent food available.  A super, long table had been reserved for us which we soon filled – with apologies to the chap enjoying quiet pint and his emails at the end of the table.  We were joined by five new MathsJammers, taking our number to 12 this month and we even managed a few tweets as well.

To start us off, we filled in a few more of Mel’s2012 puzzle – trying to create the numbers 1 – 100 using 2,0,1 and 2 using just the operators +, -, / and x. We extended this by including factorials, trig and then Ed took us into the realms of tetration.  This really got the mathematical juices flowing and other puzzles were shared around the table, such as:

“There are 100 people waiting to get on a plane.  The first person in the queue has lost his boarding card and may or may not sit in the correctly allocated seat.  What is the probability that the last person to get on the plane sits in the right seat?”

There were several other corkers that we all enjoyed.  The informal puzzle solving format seems to appeal to most, although we may branch out by asking one MathsJammer to demonstrate a particularly elegant solution to a problem that we can all admire.

A good time was had by all, fuelled by good beer, company, food and the nibbles that KST supplied to keep us going.

Looking forward to the next meeting: 22 May 7.30 – 9.30pm, KST.