A blog of Python-related topics and code.
Making a maze
Posted by: christian on 13 Apr 2017
The Depth-first search algorithm is a simple approach to generating a maze. It is well described and illustrated in lots of places on the internet, so only an outline is given here.
DOI to BibTeX
Posted by: christian on 3 Apr 2017
The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) resolution service at doi.org exposes an API for retrieving the BibTeX markup for a reference given its DOI. The following Python 3 script takes a DOI on the command line and returns the BibTeX. For example,
Making word wheels
Posted by: christian on 31 Mar 2017
Just a small script to generate word wheel puzzles: run from the command line by giving the any number of letters (central letter first) and redirecting its output to a file. Output is as an SVG file.
The Brachistochrone problem
Posted by: christian on 30 Mar 2017
The Brachistochrone problem asks the question "what is the shape of the curve down which a bead sliding from rest and accelerated by gravity will slip, without friction, from one fixed point, $P_1$ to another $P_2$ in the least time?"
Solving word wheels
Posted by: christian on 24 Mar 2017
The Guardian is one of several newspapers which publish a daily "word wheel" puzzle: eight letters are arranged in a circle around a central letter and the goal is to make as many words as possible including the central letter and using each letter once. The words should be more than 4 letters in length.