Book cover of What Is the Name of This Book?: The Riddle of Dracula and Other Logical Puzzles

Book description

"The most original, most profound, and most humorous collection of recreational logic and math problems ever written." — Martin Gardner, Scientific American
"The value of the book lies in the wealth of ingenious puzzles. They afford amusement, vigorous exercise, and instruction." — Willard Van Orman Quine, The New York Times…

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Why read it?

3 authors picked What Is the Name of This Book? as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Raymond Smullyan is a riddler, a puzzler, well-known for various Knights and Knaves puzzles, a type of logic game where some characters can only answer questions truthfully, and others only falsely. However, I recommend this book as here he offers not only logical tricks but many insights too. One section offers the World's shortest explanation of Gödel's theorem which is a magnificent achievement but frankly, reminds me why I like long explanations sometimes.

Basically, this is an examination of boolean logic, which is (rather boringly) a branch of algebra in which all operations are either true or false, and relationships…

From Martin's list on thinking skills.

Raymond Smullyan is a professor, a magician, and an author. In this book, he combines humor with logic and a flair for magic in a set of ingenious puzzles. Though the puzzles initially appear to be quirky and light-hearted, they evolve towards some of the deepest topics in modern logic, including the undecidability of even simple fields of mathematics. You will enjoy a sense of wonder at both the puzzles and their solutions.

From Dennis' list on to help you to think logically.

This book is out to trick you. It presents itself as a compendium of charming puzzles and brain teasers that will make you scratch your head until you suddenly yell “Aha!”. But far greater trickery lies ahead, because these riddles are devilishly constructed to lead you --- with no additional effort --- to the most profound discovery in the history of mathematical logic. That discovery is Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem, which says that mathematics (and indeed even just arithmetic) defies logical description and therefore transcends mere logic. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your…

From Steven's list on the biggest questions.

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