Mathematical Puzzles
Ratings1
Average rating4
"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 increase one's armory of techniques for doing mathematics. Mathematical Puzzles will, for the first time, make the 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"--
Tags
Reviews
Popular Reviews
Reviews with the most likes.
Very good collection of puzzles. While not strictly required, familiarity with some undergrad-level math would be helpful (combinatorics, probability, calculus). In particular, has probably the best collection of interesting ‘hat' puzzles. My only criticism is some of the solutions seem a bit sparse and require to guess a bit as to how they make sense (perhaps this was done to avoid excessive calculation).