The Moscow Puzzles

The Moscow Puzzles
Author: Boris A. Kordemsky
Publisher: Courier Corporation
Total Pages: 321
Release: 1992-04-10
Genre: Games & Activities
ISBN: 0486270785

A collection of math and logic puzzles features number games, magic squares, tricks, problems with dominoes and dice, and cross sums, in addition to other intellectual teasers.

My Best Mathematical and Logic Puzzles

My Best Mathematical and Logic Puzzles
Author: Martin Gardner
Publisher: Courier Corporation
Total Pages: 100
Release: 2013-04-10
Genre: Games & Activities
ISBN: 0486320324

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.

Colossal Book of Mathematics

Colossal Book of Mathematics
Author: Martin Gardner
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 748
Release: 2001
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 9780393020236

No amateur or math authority can be without this ultimate compendium of classic puzzles, paradoxes, and puzzles from America's best-loved mathematical expert. 320 line drawings.

The Master Book of Mathematical Recreations

The Master Book of Mathematical Recreations
Author: Fred Schuh
Publisher: Courier Dover Publications
Total Pages: 452
Release: 2015-11-11
Genre: Games & Activities
ISBN: 0486808955

Praised for its "exceptionally good value" by the Journal of Recreational Mathematics, this book offers fun-filled insights into many fields of mathematics. The brainteasers include original puzzles as well as new approaches to classic conundrums. A vast assortment of challenges features domino puzzles, the game of noughts and crosses, games of encirclement, sliding movement puzzles, subtraction games, puzzles in mechanics, games with piles of matches, a road puzzle with concentric circles, "Catch the Giant," and much more. Detailed solutions show several methods by which a particular problem may be answered, why one method is preferable, and where the others fail. With numerous worked examples, the clear, step-by-step analyses cover how the problem should be approached, including hints and enumeration of possibilities and determination of probabilities, application of the theory of probability, and evaluation of contingencies and mean values. Readers are certain to improve their puzzle-solving strategies as well as their mathematical skills.

Let's Play Math

Let's Play Math
Author: Denise Gaskins
Publisher: Tabletop Academy Press
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2012-09-04
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1892083248

The Bogota Puzzles

The Bogota Puzzles
Author: Bernardo Recamán
Publisher: Courier Dover Publications
Total Pages: 130
Release: 2020-10-14
Genre: Games & Activities
ISBN: 048684241X

"A Colombian mathematician assembled these eighty brainteasers, forming a stimulating collection of word problems, puzzles involving chess pieces, sudoku-style challenges, and other math-based diversions. The book includes solutions"--

Entertaining Mathematical Puzzles

Entertaining Mathematical Puzzles
Author: Martin Gardner
Publisher: Courier Corporation
Total Pages: 141
Release: 1986-10
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 0486252116

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.

Algorithmic Puzzles

Algorithmic Puzzles
Author: Anany Levitin
Publisher: OUP USA
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2011-10-14
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 0199740445

Algorithmic puzzles are puzzles involving well-defined procedures for solving problems. This book will provide an enjoyable and accessible introduction to algorithmic puzzles that will develop the reader's algorithmic thinking. The first part of this book is a tutorial on algorithm design strategies and analysis techniques. Algorithm design strategies — exhaustive search, backtracking, divide-and-conquer and a few others — are general approaches to designing step-by-step instructions for solving problems. Analysis techniques are methods for investigating such procedures to answer questions about the ultimate result of the procedure or how many steps are executed before the procedure stops. The discussion is an elementary level, with puzzle examples, and requires neither programming nor mathematics beyond a secondary school level. Thus, the tutorial provides a gentle and entertaining introduction to main ideas in high-level algorithmic problem solving. The second and main part of the book contains 150 puzzles, from centuries-old classics to newcomers often asked during job interviews at computing, engineering, and financial companies. The puzzles are divided into three groups by their difficulty levels. The first fifty puzzles in the Easier Puzzles section require only middle school mathematics. The sixty puzzle of average difficulty and forty harder puzzles require just high school mathematics plus a few topics such as binary numbers and simple recurrences, which are reviewed in the tutorial. All the puzzles are provided with hints, detailed solutions, and brief comments. The comments deal with the puzzle origins and design or analysis techniques used in the solution. The book should be of interest to puzzle lovers, students and teachers of algorithm courses, and persons expecting to be given puzzles during job interviews.

The Moscow Puzzles

The Moscow Puzzles
Author: Boris A. Kordemsky
Publisher: Courier Dover Publications
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2014-12-16
Genre: Games & Activities
ISBN: 0486801306

This is, quite simply, the best and most popular puzzle book ever published in the Soviet Union. Since its first appearance in 1956 there have been eight editions as well as translations from the original Russian into Ukrainian, Estonian, Lettish, and Lithuanian. Almost a million copies of the Russian version alone have been sold. Part of the reason for the book's success is its marvelously varied assortment of brainteasers ranging from simple "catch" riddles to difficult problems (none, however, requiring advanced mathematics). Many of the puzzles will be new to Western readers, while some familiar problems have been clothed in new forms. Often the puzzles are presented in the form of charming stories that provide non-Russian readers with valuable insights into contemporary Russian life and customs. In addition, Martin Gardner, former editor of the Mathematical Games Department, Scientific American, has clarified and simplified the book to make it as easy as possible for an English-reading public to understand and enjoy. He has been careful, moreover, to retain nearly all the freshness, warmth, and humor of the original. Lavishly illustrated with over 400 clear diagrams and amusing sketches, this inexpensive edition of the first English translation will offer weeks or even months of stimulating entertainment. It belongs in the library of every puzzlist or lover of recreational mathematics.