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The noted expert selects 70 of his favorite "short" puzzles, including such mind-bogglers as The Returning Explorer, The Mutilated Chessboard, Scrambled Box Tops, and dozens more involving logic and basic math. Solutions included.
Playing with mathematical riddles can be an intriguing and fun-filled pastime — as popular science writer Martin Gardner proves in this entertaining collection. Puzzlists need only an elementary knowledge of math and a will to resist looking up the answer before trying to solve a problem. Written in a light and witty style, Entertaining Mathematical Puzzles is a mixture of old and new riddles, grouped into sections that cover a variety of mathematical topics: money, speed, plane and solid geometry, probability, topology, tricky puzzles, and more. The probability section, for example, points out that everything we do, everything that happens around us, obeys the laws of probability; geometry puzzles test our ability to think pictorially and often, in more than one dimension; while topology, among the "youngest and rowdiest branches of modern geometry," offers a glimpse into a strange dimension where properties remain unchanged, no matter how a figure is twisted, stretched, or compressed. Clear and concise comments at the beginning of each section explain the nature and importance of the math needed to solve each puzzle. A carefully explained solution follows each problem. In many cases, all that is needed to solve a puzzle is the ability to think logically and clearly, to be "on the alert for surprising, off-beat angles...that strange hidden factor that everyone else had overlooked." Fully illustrated, this engaging collection will appeal to parents and children, amateur mathematicians, scientists, and students alike, and may, as the author writes, make the reader "want to study the subject in earnest" and explains "some of the inviting paths that wind away from the problems into lusher areas of the mathematical jungle." 65 black-and-white illustrations.
No amateur or math authority can be without this ultimate compendium of classic puzzles, paradoxes, and puzzles from America's best-loved mathematical expert. 320 line drawings.
"Solving these riddles is not simply a matter of logic and calculation, though these play a role. Luck and inspiration are factors as well, so beginners and experts alike may profitably exercise their wits on Gardner's problems, whose subjects range from geometry to word play to questions relating to physics and geology. We guarantee that you will solve some of these riddles, be stumped by others, and be amused by almost all of the stories and settings that Gardner has devised to raise these questions." --Back cover.
Second collection of amusing, thought-provoking problems and puzzles from the "Cyclopedia." Arithmetic, algebra, speed and distance problems, game theory, counter and sliding block problems, similar topics. 166 problems. 150 original drawings, diagrams.
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.
Research in mathematics is much more than solving puzzles, but most people will agree that solving puzzles is not just fun: it helps focus the mind and increases one's armory of techniques for doing mathematics. Mathematical Puzzles makes this connection explicit by isolating important mathematical methods, then using them to solve puzzles and prove a theorem. Features A collection of the world’s best mathematical puzzles Each chapter features a technique for solving mathematical puzzles, examples, and finally a genuine theorem of mathematics that features that technique in its proof Puzzles that are entertaining, mystifying, paradoxical, and satisfying; they are not just exercises or contest problems.
These logic puzzles provide entertaining variations on Gödel's incompleteness theorems, offering ingenious challenges related to infinity, truth and provability, undecidability, and other concepts. No background in formal logic necessary.
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.
