{"id":65,"date":"2008-02-14T01:11:00","date_gmt":"2008-02-14T00:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.walkingrandomly.com\/?p=65"},"modified":"2011-02-11T12:56:18","modified_gmt":"2011-02-11T11:56:18","slug":"the-broken-heart-tangram","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/walkingrandomly.com\/?p=65","title":{"rendered":"The Broken Heart Tangram"},"content":{"rendered":"

I imagine that most of the people reading this will know what the Tangram puzzle<\/a> is but just in case you are not one of them here is a quick excerpt from the Wikipedia page<\/a> which says it all:<\/p>\n

“Tangram<\/strong> (Chinese<\/a>: \u4e03\u5de7\u677f<\/span>; pinyin<\/a>: q\u012b qi\u01ceo b\u01cen<\/span>; literally “seven boards of skill”) is a dissection puzzle<\/a>. It consists of seven pieces, called tans<\/em>, which fit together to form a shape of some sort. The objective is to form a specific shape with seven pieces. The shape has to contain all the pieces, which may not overlap. ”<\/p>\n

The classical Tangram puzzle looks like this:<\/p>\n

\"tangram\"<\/p>\n

It is possible to make many shapes from these pieces; some of which are below (taken from tangrams.ca<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"Tangram<\/p>\n

If you would like to have a go at making your own Tangram shapes then you can make your own Tangram set out of paper, buy a nice wooden one<\/a>\"\", try this java applet<\/a> or use this Mathematica demonstration<\/a> (written by Enrique Zeleny<\/span>) using the free Mathplayer<\/a> from Wolfram Research. There is even a Tangram game for the Nintendo DS<\/a>\"\"!<\/p>\n

In the week leading up to Valentine’s day I wondered if there is a standard variation of the classical Tangram puzzle that is constructed from a heart shape and I was delighted to discover that there is<\/a>. Using Enrique’s Mathematica code as a starting point I wrote a demonstration called Broken Heart Tangram<\/a> and it was published on the Wolfram Demonstrations site today.<\/p>\n

\"heart<\/p>\n

I hope you have fun with this demonstration and would love to see some of the shapes that you come up with. As always, comments are welcomed.<\/p>\n

Other articles you may like<\/p>\n