The Puzzle Instinct
The Puzzle Instinct

Author: Marcel Danesi

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2004-02-20

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 9780253217080

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"Humans are the only animals who create and solve puzzles--for the sheer pleasure of it--and there is no obvious genetic reason why we would do this. Marcel Danesi explores the psychology of puzzles and puzzling, with scores of classic examples. His pioneering book is both entertaining and enlightening." --Will Shortz, Crossword Editor, The New York Times "... Puzzle fanatics will enjoy the many riddles, illusions, cryptograms and other mind-benders offered for analysis." --Psychology Today "... a bristlingly clear... always intriguing survey of the history and rationale of puzzles.... A] splendid study...." --Knight Ridder Newspapers

Lewis Carroll in Numberland
Lewis Carroll in Numberland

Author: Robin Wilson

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2008-07-30

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 0141920785

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Lewis Carroll's books have delighted children and adults for generations, but behind their exuberant fantasy and delightful nonsense was the mind of a brilliant mathematician. Now his forgotten achievements in the world of numbers are brought to light by acclaimed author and mathematician Robin Wilson. Here he explores the curious imagination of a man whose pioneering work at Oxford University included investigations into voting patterns and tennis seeding, who dreamt up numerical conundrums in bed at night and who filled his writings with problems, paradoxes, puzzles and teasing games of logic. Taking us into a world of mock turtles and maps, gryphons and gravity, Lewis Carroll in Numberland reveals the singular mind of a genius.

Equations from God
Equations from God

Author: Daniel J. Cohen

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2007-04-08

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 9780801885532

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Throughout history, application rather than abstraction has been the prominent driving force in mathematics. From the compass and sextant to partial differential equations, mathematical advances were spurred by the desire for better navigation tools, weaponry, and construction methods. But the religious upheaval in Victorian England and the fledgling United States opened the way for the rediscovery of pure mathematics, a tradition rooted in Ancient Greece. In Equations from God, Daniel J. Cohen captures the origins of the rebirth of abstract mathematics in the intellectual quest to rise above common existence and touch the mind of the deity. Using an array of published and private sources, Cohen shows how philosophers and mathematicians seized upon the beautiful simplicity inherent in mathematical laws to reconnect with the divine and traces the route by which the divinely inspired mathematics of the Victorian era begot later secular philosophies.

The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition (The Annotated Books)
The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition (The Annotated Books)

Author: Lewis Carroll

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 1999-11-17

Total Pages: 343

ISBN-13: 0393241831

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The culmination of a lifetime of scholarship, The Annotated Alice is a landmark event in the rich history of Lewis Carroll and cause to celebrate the remarkable career of Martin Gardner. For over half a century, Martin Gardner has established himself as one of the world's leading authorities on Lewis Carroll. His Annotated Alice, first published in 1959, has over half a million copies in print around the world and is beloved by both families and scholars—for it was Gardner who first decoded many of the mathematical riddles and wordplay that lay ingeniously embedded in Carroll's two classic stories, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Forty years after this groundbreaking publication, Norton is proud to publish the Definitive Edition of The Annotated Alice, a work that combines the notes of Gardner's 1959 edition with his 1990 volume, More Annotated Alice, as well as additional discoveries drawn from Gardner's encyclopedic knowledge of the texts. Illustrated with John Tenniel's classic, beloved art—along with many recently discovered Tenniel pencil sketches—The Annotated Alice will be Gardner's most beautiful and enduring tribute to Carroll's masterpieces yet.

Mathematical Recreations of Lewis Carroll
Mathematical Recreations of Lewis Carroll

Author: Lewis Carroll

Publisher: Courier Corporation

Published: 1958-06

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 9780486204932

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Whimsically and delightfully presented mathematical recreations by the author of Alice in Wonderland are solved by arithmetic, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, differential calculus and transcendental properties. 6 illustrations. Two books bound as one.