My Best Mathematical and Logic Puzzles (eBook)

Martin Gardner was a renowned author who published over 70 books on subjects from science and math to poetry and religion. He also had a lifelong passion for magic tricks and puzzles. Well known for his mathematical games column in Scientific American and his "Trick of the Month" in Physics Teacher magazine, Gardner attracted a loyal following with his intelligence, wit, and imagination. Martin Gardner: A Remembrance The worldwide mathematical community was saddened by the death of Martin Gardner on May 22, 2010. Martin was 95 years old when he died, and had written 70 or 80 books during his long lifetime as an author. Martin's first Dover books were published in 1956 and 1957: Mathematics, Magic and Mystery, one of the first popular books on the intellectual excitement of mathematics to reach a wide audience, and Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, certainly one of the first popular books to cast a devastatingly skeptical eye on the claims of pseudoscience and the many guises in which the modern world has given rise to it. Both of these pioneering books are still in print with Dover today along with more than a dozen other titles of Martin's books. They run the gamut from his elementary Codes, Ciphers and Secret Writing, which has been enjoyed by generations of younger readers since the 1980s, to the more demanding The New Ambidextrous Universe: Symmetry and Asymmetry from Mirror Reflections to Superstrings, which Dover published in its final revised form in 2005. To those of us who have been associated with Dover for a long time, however, Martin was more than an author, albeit a remarkably popular and successful one. As a member of the small group of long-time advisors and consultants, which included NYU's Morris Kline in mathematics, Harvard's I. Bernard Cohen in the history of science, and MIT's J. P. Den Hartog in engineering, Martin's advice and editorial suggestions in the formative 1950s helped to define the Dover publishing program and give it the point of view which — despite many changes, new directions, and the consequences of evolution — continues to be operative today. In the Author's Own Words:"Politicians, real-estate agents, used-car salesmen, and advertising copy-writers are expected to stretch facts in self-serving directions, but scientists who falsify their results are regarded by their peers as committing an inexcusable crime. Yet the sad fact is that the history of science swarms with cases of outright fakery and instances of scientists who unconsciously distorted their work by seeing it through lenses of passionately held beliefs." "A surprising proportion of mathematicians are accomplished musicians. Is it because music and mathematics share patterns that are beautiful?" — Martin Gardner

1. The Returning Explorer2. Draw Poker3. The Mutilated Chessboard4. The Fork in the Road5. Scrambled Box Tops6. Cutting the Cube7. Bronx vs. Brooklyn8. The Early Commuter9. The Counterfeit Coins10. The Touching Cigarettes11. Two Ferryboats12. Guess the Diagonal13. Cross the Network14. The 12 Matches15. Hole in the Sphere16. The Amorous Bugs17. How Many Children?18. The Twiddled Bolts19. The Flight around the World20. The Repetitious Number21. The Colliding Missiles22. The Sliding Pennies23. Handshakes and Networks24. The Triangular Duel25. Crossing the Desert26. Lord Dunsany's Chess Problem27. The Lonesome 828. Dividing the Cake29. The Folded Sheet30. Water and Wine31. The Absent-Minded Teller32. Acute Dissection33. "How Long Is a "Lunar"?"34. The Game of Googol35. Marching Cadets and a Trotting Dog36. "White, Black and Brown"37. The Plane in the Wind38. What Price Pets?39. The Game of Hip40. A Switching Puzzle41. Beer Signs on the Highway42. The Sliced Cube and the Sliced Doughnut43. Bisecting Yin and Yang44. The Blue-Eyed Sisters45. How Old Is the Rose-Red City?46. Tricky Track47. Termite and 27 Cubes48. Collating the Coins49. Time the Toast50. A Fixed-Point Theorem51. How Did Kant Set His Clock?52. Playing Twenty Questions when Probability Values Are Known53. Don't Mate in One54. Find the Hexahedrons55. Out with the Onion56. Cut Down the Cuts57. Dissection Dilemma58. Interrupted Bridge59. Dash It All!60. Move the Queen61. Read the Hieroglyphics62. Crazy Cut63. Find the Oddball64. Big Cross-Out Swindle65. Reverse the Dog66. Funny Fold Answers