Curve Stitchings & Card Shufflings

Here’s something non-pedagogy related and rather brief and who knows. Here goes.

Fun Fact!

1) The solution to this problem (in short: how many perfect shuffles until a 52 card deck is back in its original order)

AND

2) the creation of this picture:

Are the same thing:

So… I’m just gonna let that sit out there in the open with very little explanation. Maybe you’re curious. Maybe not. I certainly am.

Related and very cool: http://www.openprocessing.org/sketch/192276

and: http://tube.geogebra.org/student/m992965

Two other sets of related questions:

1) Will an n card deck always take n perfect shuffles before it’s back in its original order?
2) If each of the n dots in the circle are really n nails in a piece of circular wood, can I create this design with a single thread of string?

Also, this post couldn’t have happened without Dan Anderson. All this math is his fault.

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