Recreational Mathematics—Only For Fun?

In this paper, I explore recreational mathematics from two perspectives. I first study how the concept appears in educational policy documents such as stan-dards, syllabi, and curricula from a selection of countries to see if and in what way recreational mathematics can play a part in school mathematics. I find that recreational mathematics can be a central part, as in the case of India, but also completely invisible, as in the standards from USA. In the second part of the re-port, I take an educational historical approach. I observe that throughout history, recreational mathematics has been an important tool for learning mathematics. Recreational mathematics is then both a way of bringing pleasure and a tool for learning mathematics. Can it also be a tool for social empowerment? 1. Introduction. To do mathematics just for the pleasure of it is a popular activity; we find mathematical games such as sudoku and kakuro in newspapers and apps for our mobile phones. Doing mathematics for fun, otherwise called recreational mathematics, has a long history [30]. One of the oldest finds of writte