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Math Encounters -- Five Balls, Two Hands: The Patterns of Juggling -- Colin Wright (Presentation)

Name: Math Encounters -- Five Balls, Two Hands: The Patterns of Juggling -- Colin Wright (Presentation)
Description: Mathematician Colin Wright demonstrates juggling and explains the mathematics of juggling patterns, including notation that led to new throwing patterns. It is a public presentation at the Museum of Mathematics aimed at a general audience.

National Museum of Mathematics

Lectures

YouTube

3 HN users recommended this lecture3 months2017–2026 score 3.5

Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

HN recommends it as an entertaining way to learn math through juggling.

Mathematician Colin Wright demonstrates juggling and explains the mathematics of juggling patterns, including notation that led to new throwing patterns. It is a public presentation at the Museum of Mathematics aimed at a general audience.

“my fondness for this video that uses juggling to good effect to teach math in an entertaining way” (HN, 2018)

1 strong recommendations · 2 recommendations · 1 citations · Lectures

Recreational & visual math Probability & game theory Magic, puzzles & curiosities Lectures Mathematics & Theoretical CS

4 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@DoreenMichele Dec 2018 Strongly recommends

on HN thread Steve Jobs hired a career juggler to teach programming to developers

I only looked because of my fondness for this video that uses juggling to good effect to teach math in an entertaining way: [this video]

Uses juggling to teach math in an entertaining way

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@ColinWright Sep 2017 Recommends

on HN thread Claude Shannon and Juggling

Among the other resources is the lecture I gave at the series of lectures sponsored by MoMath: [this video] Intended for a general audience.

General-audience lecture on juggling patterns at MoMath

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@srean May 2026 Recommends

on HN thread Braids, Hacktastic, and Rock Climbing

Colin Wright has a fun video on braids formed by the trajectory of juggled balls. Can't seem to find it. Hope he sees this and posts. Found it [this video] On a different note do anyone of you know of a way to browse, College Mathematics, American Mathematical Monthly, Mathematics Gazette, Mathematical Intelligencer ... back issues by volume ? Without an institutional login that is. Scimag was one way. Seems to have disappeared since the Ukraine war.

Fun video on braids formed by juggled ball trajectories

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Citations, criticism and jokes

@DoreenMichele Apr 2020 Cites it

on HN thread John Conway has died

HN now gets about 5 million visitors a month. In case it needs to be said for some of those folks, the OP -- ColinWright -- is also rather well connected from what I gather and part of that circle (of recreational mathematics, etc). [this video] So I imagine the mods granted the black bar in part on the strength of who posted it. They don't do so lightly and have been known to put a hold on threads in the past to wait for confirmation. They haven't chosen to do so this time and there is likely a compelling reason for that. (Example of HN waiting for confirmation: [link] ; [link] )

Shows ColinWright's connection to recreational math circles

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