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The mathematics of bowls

1996; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 80; Issue: 488 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/3619563

2056-6328

Tom Roper,

Statistics Education and Methodologies

A little altering of the one side maketh the bowl to run biasse waies Robert Recorde, The Castle of Knowledge, 1556 John Branfield’s request [1] for the mathematics of bowls was too tempting to resist. What follows comprises a simple model for the curve upon which the bowls move, an explanation of how and why they move as they do and an attempt to refine the model of the curve. The search for a model proved to be addictive and effectively displaced many other activities. One of the reasons for this was the way in which the investigation involved so many people with interesting contributions to make. In order to give a flavour of the investigation, I have taken the liberty of giving a somewhat personal rather than strictly mathematical account, the mathematics being no less important.