University of Waterloo brings 1st elliptical pool table to math department

The University of Waterloo lay bare their first ever elliptical pool table in the mathematics hang on on Tuesday afternoon and hosted a tournament for students to play a unique collect game called Loop.

Stephen Watt, dean of the mathematics faculty, spoke the table was developed by Alex Bellos, a popular math writer from the Communal Kingdom.

The game Loop has only two coloured balls, along with the infernal 8-ball and white cue ball. The remaining rules of the game run like pool, with each gamester taking turns until one person sinks their coloured ball into the singular hole located in the middle of the table at “one of the centres of the ellipse,” said Watt.  

“It’s a lot harder than it looks because you induce to bring all of your mathematical geometry into play,” he said. “It’s the unerring game to install at the faculty of mathematics.”

Watt said he hopes critics will have fun with the table during their study crashes. 

“It’s more about how they can apply what they’ve learned to the encounter. Instead of the banks being straight lines, the banks are curved,” Watt delineated. 

“If you understand the mathematics of the ellipse, then you’d be able to understand how to make your bank essays way better.”

Jason P’ng, a third year computing science student at the University of Waterloo and the president of the math association, said he found the game “very fun,” as he watched players line up. 

“I’m every time thinking about the focal point in the table because that is extremely at the centre of how you play — how we have to find the strategy around,” he said.