Peter Winkler is at it again. Following the enthusiastic reaction to Mathematical Puzzles: A Connoisseur's Collection, Peter has compiled a new collection of elegant mathematical puzzles to challenge and entertain the reader. The original puzzle connoisseur shares these puzzles, old and new, so that you can add them to your own anthology. This book is for lovers of mathematics, lovers of puzzles, lovers of a challenge. Most of all, it is for those who think that the world of mathematics is orderly, logical, and intuitive-and are ready to learn otherwise!
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.
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.
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.
A clear, practical and self-contained presentation of the methods of asymptotics and perturbation theory for obtaining approximate analytical solutions to differential and difference equations. Aimed at teaching the most useful insights in approaching new problems, the text avoids special methods and tricks that only work for particular problems. Intended for graduates and advanced undergraduates, it assumes only a limited familiarity with differential equations and complex variables. The presentation begins with a review of differential and difference equations, then develops local asymptotic methods for such equations, and explains perturbation and summation theory before concluding with an exposition of global asymptotic methods. Emphasizing applications, the discussion stresses care rather than rigor and relies on many well-chosen examples to teach readers how an applied mathematician tackles problems. There are 190 computer-generated plots and tables comparing approximate and exact solutions, over 600 problems of varying levels of difficulty, and an appendix summarizing the properties of special functions.
Find out what it takes to become a puzzle master. More than 500 IQ brainteasers--some of the most devious ever published--offer a challenge that will stretch anyone's analytic and lateral thinking abilities to the limit. The requirements for cracking these puzzles include a sharp mind, keen mathematical skill, and a supremely logical approach. Go through a group of grids, determine the logic in their organization, and decipher the missing pattern in the final one. Check out the time on four different watches, and then figure out what hour the fifth watch should read. Look at dominoes lined up side by side, and calculate what number should appear on the last domino to complete the series. Every puzzle is brainy fun.
