Tangloids

Tangloids is a mathematical game for two players created by Piet Hein to model the calculus of Spinors.

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Two flat blocks of wood each pierced with three tiny holes are joined with three parallel strings. Each player holds one of the blocks of wood. The first player holds one block of wood still, while the other player rotates the other block of wood around any axis for two full revolutions. Then the first player tries to untangle the strings without rotating either piece of wood. Only translations (sliding the pieces) are allowed. Afterwards, the players reverse roles; whoever can untangle the strings fastest is the winner.

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ASCII diagram:

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Mathematical game: Mathematical games include many topics which are a part of recreational mathematics, but can also cover topics such as the mathematics of games, and playing games with mathematics. As far as two-player games are considered, what distinguishes a mathematical game from ordinary games is the emphasis o...

Piet Hein: Piet Pieterszoon Hein (1577–1629) was a Dutch naval commander and folk hero;his descendant Piet Hein (1905–1996) was a Danish poet and scientist....

Spinor: In mathematics and physics, in particular in the theory of the orthogonal groups, spinors are certain kinds of mathematical objects (group representations of Spin(n), roughly speaking) similar to vectors, but which change sign under a rotation of 2pi radians....