Can You Solve My Problems?: Ingenious, Perplexing, and Totally Satisfying Math and Logic Puzzles

by Alex Bellos

Puzzle lovers, rejoice! Bestselling math writer Alex Bellos has a challenge for 125 of the world’s best brainteasers from the last two millennia. Armed with logic alone, you’ll detect counterfeit coins, navigate river crossings, and untangle family trees. Then—with just a dash of high school math—you’ll tie a rope around the Earth, match wits with a cryptic wizard, and use four 4s to create every number from 1 to 50. (It can be done!) The ultimate casebook for daring puzzlers, Can You Solve My Problems? also tells the story of the puzzle—from ancient China to Victorian England to modern-day Japan. Grab your pencil and get puzzling!

354 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 18, 2017

About the author

"I was born in Oxford and grew up in Edinburgh and Southampton. After studying mathematics and philosophy at university I joined the Evening Argus in Brighton as a trainee reporter. I joined the Guardian in 1994 as a reporter and in 1998 moved to Rio de Janeiro, where I spent five years as the paper’s South America correspondent. Since 2003 I have lived in London, as a freelance writer and broadcaster.

[...]

In 2003 I presented a five-part series on Brazil for the BBC, called Inside Out Brazil. My short films about the Amazon have been broadcast on the BBC, More 4 and Al Jazeera International."

Reviews

[Sarah Uren · Rating 5 out of 5]

GREAT book for adults (or problem-loving youth) that like a little brain teaser.
We incorporate this into math time, when no one wants to trudge through their math books!