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This compilation of long-inaccessible puzzles by a famous puzzle master offers challenges ranging from arithmetical and algebraical problems to those involving geometry, combinatorics, and topology, plus game, domino, and match puzzles. Includes answers.
This book includes 110 puzzles, not as individual problems but as incidents in connected stories. The first 31 are amusingly posed by pilgrims in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Additional puzzles are presented using different characters. Many require only the ability to exercise logical or visual skills; others offer a stimulating challenge to the mathematically advanced.
FLEX YOUR brain power like never before! From acclaimed author Dr. Gary Gruber, whose proven critical-thinking methods have sold more than seven million books, this collection of mind-bending brain teasers is sure to challenge even the most experienced problem solver. Inside are logic puzzles, riddles, maddening math problems, mental games, and more! A ship is twice as old as the ship's boiler was when the ship was as old as the boiler is. The ratio of the boiler's age now to the ship's age now is what? What English word contains all the vowels, in alphabetical order? What is the three-digit number that can be made from the digits 2, 3, 5, and 7 where no two digits in the three-digit number are alike, and where the three-digit number is a multiple of each of the digits chosen? Stumped? Dr. Gruber reveals the fascinating explanations and detailed strategies for solving even the trickiest problems using his exclusive Gruber Method. DISCLAIMER: The brain teasers in this book may get you so wrapped up in critical thinking that you may not be able to do your regular work until you solve them! Any abrupt or gradual increase in creativity, intelligence, or motivation to get a better job suited to your newfound talents is strictly the reader's responsibility. For more than thirty years, Gary R. Gruber, PhD, has been recognized as a leading expert on the SAT, test-taking methods, and critical-thinking skills. His methods have been used by PBS, Sylvan Learning Centers, Grolier's Encyclopedia, and school districts throughout the country. Dr. Gruber's innovative problem-solving strategies make up the heart of the new MyMaxScore's online test prep (www.mymaxscore.com).
This fanciful, original collection for readers of all ages features arithmetic puzzles, logic problems related to crime detection, and logic and arithmetic puzzles involving King Arthur and his Dogs of the Round Table.
The renowned provocateur of popular math presents a collection of his widely recognized short puzzles--along with a few new ones--that explore chess, physics, probability, and topology, among other topics.
Algorithmic puzzles are puzzles involving well-defined procedures for solving problems. This book will provide an enjoyable and accessible introduction to algorithmic puzzles that will develop the reader's algorithmic thinking. The first part of this book is a tutorial on algorithm design strategies and analysis techniques. Algorithm design strategies — exhaustive search, backtracking, divide-and-conquer and a few others — are general approaches to designing step-by-step instructions for solving problems. Analysis techniques are methods for investigating such procedures to answer questions about the ultimate result of the procedure or how many steps are executed before the procedure stops. The discussion is an elementary level, with puzzle examples, and requires neither programming nor mathematics beyond a secondary school level. Thus, the tutorial provides a gentle and entertaining introduction to main ideas in high-level algorithmic problem solving. The second and main part of the book contains 150 puzzles, from centuries-old classics to newcomers often asked during job interviews at computing, engineering, and financial companies. The puzzles are divided into three groups by their difficulty levels. The first fifty puzzles in the Easier Puzzles section require only middle school mathematics. The sixty puzzle of average difficulty and forty harder puzzles require just high school mathematics plus a few topics such as binary numbers and simple recurrences, which are reviewed in the tutorial. All the puzzles are provided with hints, detailed solutions, and brief comments. The comments deal with the puzzle origins and design or analysis techniques used in the solution. The book should be of interest to puzzle lovers, students and teachers of algorithm courses, and persons expecting to be given puzzles during job interviews.
Keeping students involved and actively learning is challenging. Instructors in computer science are aware of the cognitive value of modelling puzzles and often use logical puzzles as an efficient pedagogical instrument to engage students and develop problem-solving skills. This unique book is a comprehensive resource that offers teachers and students fun activities to teach and learn logic. It provides new, complete, and running formalisation in Propositional and First Order Logic for over 130 logical puzzles, including Sudoku-like puzzles, zebra-like puzzles, island of truth, lady and tigers, grid puzzles, strange numbers, or self-reference puzzles. Solving puzzles with theorem provers can be an effective cognitive incentive to motivate students to learn logic. They will find a ready-to-use format which illustrates how to model each puzzle, provides running implementations, and explains each solution. This concise and easy-to-follow textbook is a much-needed support tool for students willing to explore beyond the introductory level of learning logic and lecturers looking for examples to heighten student engagement in their computer science courses.
These marvelous, stimulating games for the mind include geometric paradoxes, cube and color arrangement puzzles, calendar paradoxes, much more. Detailed solutions prepare readers for puzzles of even greater complexity.
A collection of math and logic puzzles features number games, magic squares, tricks, problems with dominoes and dice, and cross sums, in addition to other intellectual teasers.
