Research in maths 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 maths. This book makes this connection explicit by isolating important mathematical methods, then using them to solve puzzles and prove a theorem.
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.
This Revised Edition has been thoroughly edited to correct errors and provide clarifications, and includes some totally different solutions, modified puzzles, and one entirely new puzzle.
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.
Author's Preface The Puzzles The Hints 1. Out for the Count 2.
Achieving Parity 3. Intermediate Math 4. Graphography 5. Algebra Too 6.
Safety in Numbers
7. The Law of Small Numbers 8. Weighs and Means 9. The
Power of Negative Thinking 10. In All Probability 11. Working for the
System 12. The Pigeonhole Principle
13. Information, Please 14. Great
Expectation 15. Brilliant Induction 16. Journey Into Space 17. Nimbers and
the Hamming Code 18. Unlimited Potentials 19. Hammer and Tongs 20. Let's
Get Physical 21. Back from the Future 22. Seeing is Believing
23. Infinite
Choice 24. Startling Transformation Notes & Sources
Peter Winkler is the William Morrill Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at Dartmouth College, and for 2019 - 2020, the Distinguished Visiting Professor for the Public Dissemination of Mathematics at the National Museum of Mathematics. He is the author of 160 research papers, a dozen patents, two previous puzzle books, a book on cryptographic techniques in the game of bridge, and a portfolio of compositions for ragtime piano.
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