Archimedes' Lab Newsletter

Of course we couldn't edit a social and educative website without making a page for it on Facebook!
If you are not already, you might consider becoming a fan of Archimedes' Lab on Facebook to get updates about Archimedes' contests, features and other cool stuff. Hope to see you there...

Go to Become a fan page...

A new interesting feature called 'Pencil Games' has been added for pencil puzzle lovers all over the world! Where the visitor can work out path puzzles, Sudokus, mosaic and geometric puzzles...

Go to Pencil games page...

Representations of skulls in art are legion, from Hans Holbein's distorted death's head in his painting ‘The Ambassadors’ to Andy Warhol’s paintings of screen-printed skulls in gory black and white and overlaid with different colors. Skulls have also their place in optical illusions...

Go to Macabre optical illusion page...

Abracada-Brain puzzles
develop your zen mind, your logical thinking and imagination skills with original intuitive paradoxical twisters and puzzles, and intriguing 'koans'!

Go to Abracada-Brain puzzle page...

Chess players will appreciate this new entry... The problem is to find a tour of a knight on particular chessboards. Only valid moves of a knight are allowed and every square of the board must be visited exactly once!

Go to Knigh'ts Tour puzzle page...

New book releases for Fall 2007
We are proud to announce our latest works on optical illusions: Eye Tricks and Make Your Own 3D Illusions. We really hope you will enjoy them!

New Optical Illusion Books

Eye Tricks, ISBN 1844427773	Make Your own 3D Illusions, ISBN 1844426327

Go to Optical Illusion Books...

Our ancestors knew all about optical illusions, even if they didn’t always recognize the cerebral mechanisms that created them... A place where to discover some interesting early visual illusions!

Go to Vintage Illusions page...

How to focus attention? Give a desire to participate? Encourage creative exploration? ...We've updated and extended our Workshop page featuring interactive educational proposals for museums and institutions.

Go to Workshops page...

Our experience in the field of human perception and visual creativity has lead us to the publication of two new puzzling books: "MateMagica" and "New Optical Illusions", in order to share our discoveries with our readers.

Go to Teaching Guide Books page...

A new gallery has been added to our optical illusion section. Puzzling visual illusions for everyone: beginners and experts as well... Each month, new images are being added but the old ones are archived into a large database.

Go to New Optical Illusion gallery...

We've redesigned and updated our Tangram puzzle section. The challenge of the Tangram lies in the ability to arrange 7 pieces into a variety of shapes... Who really invented the Tangram? What is the Chinese name for Tangram puzzle? More than 5 pages full of original puzzle ideas, activities and figures to match. It worths a visit!

Go to Tangram Puzzle pages...

The Shadoks are kind of outer-space bird-like creatures designed and created by Jacques Rouxel in the late sixties... The Shadoks live on the shadok planet where everything is going wrong, and their efforts to escape to Earth are constantly foiled by rivals from another planet. They speak a special language called "gabuzome". Actually, it is composed of only four syllables: ga, bu, zo, me (pr.: gah, büh, zoh, möh)...

Go to crazy Shadok world...

A metaphorical encyclopedia of our world, a visionary tale of mankind, or an hallucinatory journey through our fears? No, just a diverting and surrealist book written in a florid script, entirely invented and completely illegible, and illustrated with watercolor paintings representing strange objects and scenes.

Go to Codex Seraphinianus...

Our calendar features 12 exciting optical illusions. Each month brings a dazzling visual discovery to experiment with...

Go to 2004 Wall Calendar...

Most observers will say the Moon looks bigger when it is close to the horizon, and smaller when it is higher in the sky. But is this true? Is the Moon like an inflatable balloon? Sometimes, looks can be deceiving...

Go to Moon Illusion...

Texts in original language of early puzzle authors for you to download: Peano, Alberti, Alcuin of York, Da Vinci, etc.
Opere in lingua originale di autori di giochi matematici antichi e non...

Go to Puzzle Classics...

Did you know that 'Magicicada' life cycles are always of 13 or 17 years? That the Romans, too, could transcribe unit fractions? That the name Pontius (Pilatus), in early Italic language means “the 5^th”? These pages are full of number facts, both mathematical and cultural, tantalising problems and anecdotes...

Go to Encyclopedy of Numbers...

A new "old" puzzle to solve online. The "15 Puzzle" consists of 15 squares numbered from 1 to 15 which are placed in a 4x4 box leaving one position out of the 16 empty. The goal is to reposition the squares from a given arbitrary starting arrangement by sliding them one at a time into the configuration shown above (for some initial arrangements, this rearrangement is possible, but for others, it is not).

Go to 15 Slide Puzzle page...

We have updated our Month's puzzle page and have added a few new features:
1) a math Quiz;
2) a new section: Wunderkammer, a collection of puzzling facts concerning the world of sciences, language and history...
3) and an incredible loquacious Robot (called Guigui the A'Bot) you can chat with for hours!

Go to Puzzle of the Month page...

What's a Droodle? A droodle is a doodle riddle, i.e. a combination of a doodle and a riddle... Droodles were known for centuries but were popularized by Roger Price in the 1950s. These cartoons were rather abstract drawings of a few lines accompanied by an implicit question: "What is it?". A punch line (usually a funny description) made the cartoons obvious.

Go to Droodles page...

In this new page a typical packing problem is presented. A set of blocks completely fills a given space, but nevertheless, an extra piece can be added! Magic?
You can make your own Paradoxopiped puzzle just by following the short instructions shown on the page. Enjoy!

Go to Paradoxopiped page...

A new page featuring 3 perpetual calendars:
1) a javascript perpetual calendar,
2) perpetual calendar tables,
3) Zeller's formula that allows you to calculate a day of the week for any date.
The javascript calendar and the tables are copyright free and you may download them for your web pages.

Go to Perpetual Calendars page...

We have updated the pages featuring kinetic illusions.
You will find there new images and an original article on the rotoreliefs - optical discs created by Marcel Duchamp - which produce the illusion of motion in perspective.
There are a lot of good ideas for exploring the world of optical illusions!

Go to Kinetic Illusions page...

The color test featured in this page is designed to give a quick assessment of color vision.
The results of the test may be interesting but are not to be considered a valid medical test for color deficiency and merely serve to illustrate the tests available. The original card version of this test was invented by Dr Shinobu Ishihara.

Go to Color Test page...

We expanded the Moiré patterns page with new original images and drawings you can download for your web pages (but please credit us, a link back would also be appreciated!).
In short, moiré is interference that can be seen when overlaying similar patterns. Just as the fine hairs of the Angora caused patterns, geometric patterns such as Circles, Parallel and Radial Lines, or Points also do.

Go to Moiré Patterns page...