Есть идея!

by Martin Gardner, Мартин Гарднер, Юлий Александрович Данилов (Translator)

Книга известного американского популяризатора науки Мартина Гарднера, посвященная поиску удачных идей для решений задач из области комбинаторики, геометрии, логики, теории чисел и игр со словами.

Рассчитана на самый широкий круг читателей.

Genres: Mathematics, Science, Nonfiction, Puzzles, Logic, Popular Science, Reference

305 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1978

About the author

Martin Gardner was an American mathematics and science writer specializing in recreational mathematics, but with interests encompassing micromagic, stage magic, literature (especially the writings of Lewis Carroll), philosophy, scientific skepticism, and religion. He wrote the Mathematical Games column in Scientific American from 1956 to 1981, and published over 70 books.

Reviews

[Robu-sensei · Rating 4 out of 5]

A variety of puzzles and riddles with simple, but not easily divined, solutions from Martin Gardner, former "Mathematical Games" columnist for Scientific American (back when it was still very intellectual). Each puzzle is accompanied by both a short, direct explanation and more in-depth discussion generalizing the particular insight to other relevant problems and, in some cases, offering more challenging questions of the same form. Topics range from straight-up mathematics—arithmetic, geometry and number theory—to logic and even word games. These conundrums—and just as much, the abstract, seemingly childish yet sophisticated illustrations—delighted me as a child, though I was a bit young to appreciate their beauty and usefulness.

[Behrooz Parhami · Rating 4 out of 5]

A philosopher of science by training, Gardner wrote the “Mathematical Games” column for Scientific American for 25 years. I was an avid reader of his fascinating columns. He later turned collections of material from his columns into several books. In the book under review here, he collaborated with Canadian math-teacher-turned-education-technologist Bob Tappay, who supplied film-strip drawings and other images for the book.

Gardner begins by trying to define insight, using a remarkable example which is more than a century old, yet captures perfectly the current debate on artificial intelligence and its risks to humanity.

In the 1910s, researcher Wolfgang Kohler hung a banana from the ceiling and planned to place empty boxes around the room, to see if a chimp is able to figure out that it could reach the banana by stacking boxes. As Kohler brought the first box into the room, he happened to walk under the spot where the banana was hung. The chimp suddenly jumped unto his shoulder and grabbed the banana. This solution was not anticipated by Kohler.

The moral of the story is that AI (and smart creatures) can discover solutions that the experiment designer or system developer did not anticipate. The insight for solving a problem comes from unpredictable sources, as researchers well know. The book introduces many challenging problems and discusses insights needed for their solution.

I end my review with this gem from the book’s introduction: "It would be a sad day if human beings, adjusting to the Computer Revolution, became so intellectually lazy that they lost their power of creative thinking. The central purpose of this collection of puzzles is to exercise and improve your ability in this technique of problem solving” (p. viii).

[Rob · Rating 5 out of 5]

I hate math; yet I love this book.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

rereading this one, a fun book,

[Cheryl Leon Levy]

These books teach us different mathematical paradoxes using the cutest little cartoons to make them simple. As a self-diagnosed dyslexic, I appreciate the way this man helps us think!

[Eric Haines · Rating 5 out of 5]

For this and "Aha! Gotcha": Books of paradoxes, fallacies, puzzles, and just plain fascinating ideas. Gardner has written hundreds of great columns on mathematical ideas for Scientific American, as well as a huge number of excellent books on math, science, pseudoscience, magic, and much else. These two are great books for that clever kid you know, age nine and up. They're almost a "best of" collection of many of the topics he's written about before in his columns, distilled down to their essence.

[💗Loveyagurl😇Cutie-Pieeee😋😋😋😋 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was so good. It gave me plenty of puzzling questions and yet it was so easy when it told me. I loved it 🥰 when they gave me quiz to solve without giving the answers. To this day I still do not know the answers to most of them. You can learn yet have some fun in AHA gotcha. The actual book will blow your mind!

[Isaac · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good coverage of interesting ideas and little problems. Well written, focusing on lateral thinking for a lot of the questions (as the title may suggest). Sometimes feels to avoid larger ideas or talk only in brief about them, which might be purposeful given the wide target audience.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite books of Martin Gardner. Simply outstanding!

[Tor Lundgren · Rating 5 out of 5]

I lot of nice brain-teasers in here, and amusing illustrations.