Games for Your Mind: The History and Future of Logic Puzzles

by Jason Rosenhouse

A lively and engaging look at logic puzzles and their role in mathematics, philosophy, and recreation

Logic puzzles were first introduced to the public by Lewis Carroll in the late nineteenth century and have been popular ever since. Games like Sudoku and Mastermind are fun and engrossing recreational activities, but they also share deep foundations in mathematical logic and are worthy of serious intellectual inquiry. Games for Your Mind explores the history and future of logic puzzles while enabling you to test your skill against a variety of puzzles yourself.

In this informative and entertaining book, Jason Rosenhouse begins by introducing readers to logic and logic puzzles and goes on to reveal the rich history of these puzzles. He shows how Carroll's puzzles presented Aristotelian logic as a game for children, yet also informed his scholarly work on logic. He reveals how another pioneer of logic puzzles, Raymond Smullyan, drew on classic puzzles about liars and truthtellers to illustrate Kurt Gödel's theorems and illuminate profound questions in mathematical logic. Rosenhouse then presents a new vision for the future of logic puzzles based on nonclassical logic, which is used today in computer science and automated reasoning to manipulate large and sometimes contradictory sets of data.

Featuring a wealth of sample puzzles ranging from simple to extremely challenging, this lively and engaging book brings together many of the most ingenious puzzles ever devised, including the "Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever," metapuzzles, paradoxes, and the logic puzzles in detective stories.

Genres: Nonfiction, Mathematics, Logic

352 pages, Paperback

Published September 27, 2022

Reviews

[Selfisher · Rating 5 out of 5]

After finish this book, I wrote a letter to the author:

Hi Dr. Rosenhouse,

I am a reader from China. I just finished your book, Games for Your Mind, and I think it's a great book, I enjoyed the whole time when I read it. Thanks for your writing!

However, I have some questions about this book, or I will put it that, there may be some minor mistakes in this book.

On P.77, for the puppies puzzle, I believe the conclusion should be "All puppies who are not willing to lie still do not care to do worsted work", did you miss a not there? Or did I miss something?

P.123, Puzzle 30, I think it should go like this:
A: B is of higher rank than C.
B: C is of higher rank than A.
Rather than what printed there. Am I right?

P.182, the solution for puzzle 51:
Now, suppose A is a Knight. Then B really is an unestablished knave.
In this sentence, I think B should be an established knave, right?

P.236, for (c) on that page, I think v(P)∧Q=0, should be v(P∧Q)=0, right?

Another minor thing is on P.250, in this sentence,
They noticed a a loophole in Boolos's presentation...
There are two a there, I think one of them is unnecessary.

Again, I think this is a great book, and if it has some mistakes, anyone will enjoy it more after we correct them.

Thanks!

[Olwyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

2 things about me are that I love math and I love puzzles 😤
this is fun and I think it's a cool survey of logic puzzles and how to solve them even though it gets really into notation really fast
lots of cool further reading suggestions

[Mishehu · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fun, engaging, well-written foray into the world of logic games. The author builds from simple to dizzyingly complex problems. All problems (I believe) are imported from other authors (Carol and Smullyan receiving especially lengthy treatments). Along the way, the author also discusses quite a lot of logic (different types, history of). The result is a heady blend. At some point I found it tedious to read through (let alone attempt working out) the solutions to problems stated in the book. My guess is every reader will have a different threshold for doing the same, with only the hardiest logicians/logic-gamers setting no such threshold. That's no slight on the book, however; to the contrary, it's to say that the book offers many delights to readers of all sorts and with varying levels of logical facility. I enjoyed this book immensely.

[John Brekke · Rating 2 out of 5]

A game for the mind is kind of a headache. I found this dense, dull and unapproachable. Also I was listening on audiobook and that format is not conducive to the material bc so much of the material is visual/is incredibly difficult to visualize without the associated charts/visual materials.

[Lars Ankile · Rating 5 out of 5]

How Mr. Rosenhouse can make a book about logic this entertaining and riveting is truly remarkable. I learned many things, got a deeper appreciation for logic as a discipline beyond just the Aristotelian syllogism, and, of course, got to engage those little gray ones.

[Pearlyn Chua · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun stuff, though the logic puzzles got way beyond me at a certain point. Docking a star because I encountered at least one puzzle/solution with a typo that made it unsolvable.