F.A.Q.
What is your contact information?
The E-Mail address for this website is as follows:unicur77salresearch@proton.me (remove the "77" from the address in order for it to work properly).
All the usual safety pre-requisites apply such as unsolicited attachments will be deleted, sight unseen. As always, abusing the privilege isn't advised. I won't be monitoring it everyday; If you have a Neocities account, simply message me on my profile page for a far faster response.
Do you have a 'button' that I can put on my own website?
Yes, I do. Here it is:
It used to be on the index page but I have since taken that down as it had served its purpose. Feel free to use it though, on your website, to link to this website. Thank you.
Why the website re-design? (Both of them)
There have been two major re-designs: From the original "gray" design to the "white" design, and then a re-organization of the "white" design.
Addressing the "gray to white" re-design, it was for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, my HTML skills are incredibly rusty for modern standards. If this were still the 1990s, my skills would suffice. However, I have not kept up with all of the advances that HTML has undergone and my prior website design illustrated that inadequacy in many ways.
Addressing the re-organization of the "white" design, it was mainly because the website badly needed it. I had initially adopted a "flat level" strategy where almost all of the webpages were on the same 'level' with few folders and subfolders. That design philosophy may be good for very small and simplistic websites but the website's demands ultimately needed more structure and organization as it grew.
What's the 'true difference' between 'The Parade' and 'The Catalog'?
That is a fair question. In brief, they both overlap in their functions as well as diverge. 'The Catalog' depicts unicursal mazes via a TrueType Font while 'The Parade' depicts them using Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG). 'The Catalog' is able to depict the variants of an unicursal maze while 'The Parade' can not. There is the option of building an saving an unicursal maze in 'The Parade' that is not possible in 'The Catalog.' In summary, they do the same thing but in different ways with slightly different features. They are both ice cream but they are different flavors of ice cream. Who doesn't want the option of chocolate and vanilla as opposed to only one or the other?What's with the "Praise Asterion" & "Honor to Asterion" at the end of
'Achievement' posts?
It's a hold-over from an abandoned concept that I had for this website where the website was going to be sort of a part interactive game / experience. Since I had neither the time nor the skill to render that concept competently, that concept never went far but, as a consolation, that tiny part of it survived.
Why create this website?
I created this website to showcase the research that I have done in this particular field of study. I find that this field is fascinating and the results of that research may be of benefit to society someday.Aren't you afraid that someone will steal your research?
There is always the chance of intellectual theft regardless of how you present your findings. I am not certain of what monetary value this research would have for others. This research is very specific and it's practical applications in the academic field seems to be fairly limited. Presenting these findings in this environment is, as with all such reveals, a calculated risk that I am willing to make.How long have you been researching unicursal mazes?
Sporadically for several years although, since 2017, practically every day. If I had to hazard an accurate guess, I would write that I started my interest in unicursal mazes in 2010 although I can not guarantee that date. It may even be earlier than that although not by much.Why unicursal mazes? Why not "normal" mazes?
Unicursal mazes fascinate me in that they need to follow certain rules and structures that are not all presently known or completely understood. The fact that I haven't been able to find very much about this field has been startling. Also, any curiousity that I have had about multicursal (normal) mazes is available elsewhere on the Internet.How much time every day do you devote to researching unicursal
mazes?
The "routine" tasks (the physical drawing of mazes, discovery of new original pairs, analysis of decision point distribution & cataloging of completed paths) typically takes close to one hour per day. I have begun having an "evening session" where I concentrate on rule discovery and what I call "maze audits" (where I draw out every possible combination, including dead ends, of a particular original pair). That "evening session" might take 15 minutes based upon various factors. Any extraneous amounts of time beyond those tasks but still connected to unicursal mazes (such as this website) are out of necessity for the most part.
What is the "Holy Grail" of your research?
Originally, the "Holy Grail" was to find a single equation that a person could calculate in order to find the number for all of the original paths in any given size field. For example, let's say that you had a 5x6 field. Just knowing that it was a 5x6 field, you could use an equation to find all of the original paths for that field. At this point in my research, I firmly believe that such an equation does not exist. It exists for the 2xN fields and, for a brief moment, I thought that it existed for 3xN fields (more on all of that much later and elsewhere). However, all evidence currently points to it being a series of equations that I've only begun to discover and will probably never know the full extent unless I quit my job and researched this full time for the rest of my life or just get incredibly lucky.Have you made any mistakes so far in your research?
Plenty. Lots. Many. For example, I have found numerous original paths in previous fields that I thought that I had completed. I may even one day call attention to those particular paths.However, you learn from your mistakes and you eventually settle on practices and procedures that produce far less (and, hopefully, no) errors. While no one (and nothing) is perfect, I'm far more confident in my unicursal maze research abilities today than where I was two years ago.