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A high-class puzzle book from the bestselling author of Alex's Adventures in Numberland; organised from easy-peasy to ninja level - with stories of puzzle mysteries, histories and scandals along the way this book will make your hippocampus happy.
Are you smarter than a Singaporean ten-year-old? Can you beat Sherlock Holmes? If you think the answer is yes - I challenge you to solve my problems. Here are 125 of the world's best brainteasers from the last two millennia, taking us from ancient China to medieval Europe, Victorian England to modern-day Japan, with stories of espionage, mathematical breakthroughs and puzzling rivalries along the way. Pit your wits against logic puzzles and kinship riddles, pangrams and river-crossing conundrums. Some solutions rely on a touch of cunning, others call for creativity, others need mercilessly logical thought. Some can only be solved be 2 per cent of the population. All are guaranteed to sharpen your mind. Let's get puzzling!
Puzzle lovers, rejoice! Bestselling math writer Alex Bellos has a challenge for you: 125 of the world’s best brainteasers from the last two millennia. Armed with logic alone, you’ll detect counterfeit coins, navigate river crossings, and untangle family trees. Then—with just a dash of high school math—you’ll tie a rope around the Earth, match wits with a cryptic wizard, and use four 4s to create every number from 1 to 50. (It can be done!) The ultimate casebook for daring puzzlers, Can You Solve My Problems? also tells the story of the puzzle—from ancient China to Victorian England to modern-day Japan. Grab your pencil and get puzzling!
This book is about two things – Puzzles and Mathematics. It talks about how you can model a puzzle mathematically and solve it in an easy, structured and systematic way. So you would not only learn the different mathematical concepts, but also at the same time enjoy solving different well known puzzles. And if that’s not enough, there is a set of interesting puzzles at the end of each chapter, to keep your grey cells ticking. This book not only helps you understand the mathematical concepts in a fun way, but also helps you learn the techniques of solving puzzles in an easy way. So if you like mathematics or puzzles, then you would definitely like this book. This book is recommended for school and college students as it would help them appreciate the practical application of the mathematical concepts they learn as part of their academics. And if you are a serious puzzle solver, then this is the book you are waiting for. Not only does the book teach you the modelling techniques to solve a puzzle, but also challenges you with a set of interesting new puzzles. Written in a simple way, with self-explaining graphical illustrations, this book is a treat.
Put your wits—and survival instincts—to the test! Publisher’s Note: Perilous Problems for Puzzle Lovers was previously published in the UK under the title So You Think You’ve Got Problems? In Perilous Problems for Puzzle Lovers, Alex Bellos collects 125 of the world’s greatest stumpers—many dangerous to your person, and all dangerous to your pride. Brace yourself to wrestle with wordplay, grapple with geometry, and scramble for survival. For example . . . Ten lions and a sheep are in a pen. Any lion who eats the sheep will fall asleep. A sleeping lion will be eaten by another lion, who falls asleep in turn. If the lions are all perfect logicians, what happens? Bellos pairs his fiendish brainteasers with fascinating history, so you’ll meet Alcuin, Sam Loyd, and other puzzle masters of yore—in between deranged despots and wily jailers with an unaccountable taste for riddles. Will you make it out alive? And what about the sheep?
Collection of 100 of the best submissions to a math puzzle column features problems in engineering situations, logic, number theory, and geometry. Most solutions include details of several different methods.
Polyominoes will delight not only students and teachers of mathematics at all levels, but will be appreciated by anyone who likes a good geometric challenge. There are no prerequisites. If you like jigsaw puzzles, or if you hate jigsaw puzzles but have ever wondered about the pattern of some floor tiling, there is much here to interest you. A polyomino is a shape cut along the lines from square graph paper; the pronunciation of polyomino begins as does polygon and ends as does domino. Tilings, also called tessellations of mosaic patterns, are older than civilization itself. Tiling with polyominoes provides challenges that range from the popular jigsaw-like puzzles to easily understood mathematical research problems. You will find unsolved puzzles and problems of both kinds here. Answers are provided for most of the problems that have known solutions. It is only fair to repeat here the warning stated in the preface to this book, "Playing with polyominoes can be habit forming."
"Math enthusiasts of all ages will delight in this collection of more than 200 riddles drawn from every mathematical discipline. Only an elementary background is needed to enjoy and solve the tremendous variety of puzzles, which include riddles based on geometry, trigonometry, algebra, infinity, probability, and logic. Includes complete solutions and 113 illustrations"--
Too often math gets a bad rap, characterized as dry and difficult. But, Alex Bellos says, "math can be inspiring and brilliantly creative. Mathematical thought is one of the great achievements of the human race, and arguably the foundation of all human progress. The world of mathematics is a remarkable place." Bellos has traveled all around the globe and has plunged into history to uncover fascinating stories of mathematical achievement, from the breakthroughs of Euclid, the greatest mathematician of all time, to the creations of the Zen master of origami, one of the hottest areas of mathematical work today. Taking us into the wilds of the Amazon, he tells the story of a tribe there who can count only to five and reports on the latest findings about the math instinct—including the revelation that ants can actually count how many steps they’ve taken. Journeying to the Bay of Bengal, he interviews a Hindu sage about the brilliant mathematical insights of the Buddha, while in Japan he visits the godfather of Sudoku and introduces the brainteasing delights of mathematical games. Exploring the mysteries of randomness, he explains why it is impossible for our iPods to truly randomly select songs. In probing the many intrigues of that most beloved of numbers, pi, he visits with two brothers so obsessed with the elusive number that they built a supercomputer in their Manhattan apartment to study it. Throughout, the journey is enhanced with a wealth of intriguing illustrations, such as of the clever puzzles known as tangrams and the crochet creation of an American math professor who suddenly realized one day that she could knit a representation of higher dimensional space that no one had been able to visualize. Whether writing about how algebra solved Swedish traffic problems, visiting the Mental Calculation World Cup to disclose the secrets of lightning calculation, or exploring the links between pineapples and beautiful teeth, Bellos is a wonderfully engaging guide who never fails to delight even as he edifies. Here’s Looking at Euclid is a rare gem that brings the beauty of math to life.
Thought you had it bad? In this book, you will be: Imprisoned by a sadistic logician. Challenged to raise dogs from the dead. Trapped on a burning island. And much more besides . . . Everything is at stake in this compendium of more than 150 ingenious puzzles, selected to reveal the wonderful diversity of brainteasers that have confounded and intrigued solvers for the last thousand years. You'll need to pit your wits against probability problems, wrestle with wordplay, grapple with geometry and scrabble for survival. Along the way you will discover stories of whip-smart thinkers, eccentric novelists and a poodle with allegedly supernatural powers. You will absorb fascinating and important mathematical ideas. Some solutions will rely on ingenuity, some will challenge you to spot hidden patterns, others call for extreme rationality. All will surprise, entertain and stretch your brain. Will you make it out with your puzzling pride intact?
