Why read Mathematical Puzzles?

Book cover of Mathematical Puzzles

Book description

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…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Mathematical Puzzles as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Pramod Ganapathi

Author

Peter Winkler is famous for his collections of counterintuitive puzzles. Thousands of people, including me, have spent many sleepless nights trying to understand the mysteries in these puzzles, for which, I am forever grateful.

Haunting puzzles in the book include hats and infinity, all right or all wrong, comparing numbers version 1/2, wild guess, laser gun, precarious picture, names in boxes, sleeping beauty, and dot-town exodus.

Most puzzle books exclude counterintuitive puzzles for unknown reasons. So, many people incorrectly assume that counterintuitive puzzles are majorly found in paradoxes. Peter Winkler in this book shows that counterintuition can come from either…

From Pramod's list on The best books on mathematical and algorithmic puzzles.