The Colossal Book of Short Puzzles and Problems

by Martin Gardner, Dana Richards (Editor)

Finally collected in one volume, Martin Gardner's immensely popular short puzzles; along with a few new ones from the master. For more than twenty-five years, Martin Gardner was Scientific American's renowned provocateur of popular math. His yearly gatherings of short and inventive problems were easily his most anticipated math columns. Loyal readers would savor the wit and elegance of his explorations in physics, probability, topology, and chess, among others. Grouped by subject and arrayed from easiest to hardest, the puzzles gathered here, which complement the lengthier, more involved problems in The Colossal Book of Mathematics , have been selected by Gardner for their illuminating; and often bewildering; solutions. Filled with over 300 illustrations, this new volume even contains nine new mathematical gems that Gardner, now ninety, has been gathering for the last decade. No amateur or expert math lover should be without this indispensable volume; a capstone to Gardner's seventy-year career. 308 illustrations

Genres: Mathematics, Puzzles, Nonfiction, Science, Reference, Games

512 pages, Hardcover

First published November 28, 2005

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

[Mark Desrosiers · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I subscribed to Scientific American as a kid, I always skipped ahead to Gardner's "Mathematical Games" column much the same way I skip ahead to the obituary page in the Economist today. Or the way my future 2086 self will page down to the "Intestinal Topology" bitfeed in the Re-Animated Evening Post (OK I'll stop now).

Each chapter is organized from easy (usually a trick question) to very very difficult. Half the fun is seeing how long you can survive puzzling it out before the inevitable "cheat" page-flippin' to the answers. A must for Martin Gardner fans (n.b. the man turns ninety-four years old next Wednesday).

Here is my vote for the most surprising and hilarious of the "easy" problems:

Each face of a convex polyhedron can serve as a base when the solid is placed on a horizontal plane. The center of gravity of a regular polyhedron is at the center, therefore it is stable on any face. Irregular polyhedrons are easily constructed that are unstable on certain faces; that is, when placed on a table with an unstable face as the base, they topple over. Is it possible to make a model of an irregular convex polyhedron that is unstable on every face?

[John Orman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Huge indeed, this book from the "dean of American puzzlers" covers puzzles of many different types--Combinatorial, geometric, algorithmic, wordplay, and physics. Some brain teasers thrown in just to keep it quizzical! Fun and challenging.

The questions range from complex combinatoric/factorial calculations to logic questions like:
On a sultry July night in Omaha, it was raining at midnight. Is it possible that 72 hours later the weather in Omaha was sunny? Think about it.

[James Morrison]

Everything you would expect from the title and more. Most of all I think I gained a certain insight about how we think when we solve these sorts of problems. People who are good at it seem to be able to find the answer by using intuition that doesn't require grinding it out in a conventional way. It also speaks to how some people seem to have an infinity for this sort of thing even without an advanced training in mathematics. In some fields, I often say, "anyone can learn this, it doesn't require some innate talent." But in the short puzzles and problems perhaps it does require some sort of talent or innate ability. Fun stuff and you will often slap your forehead and say, "I should have known that" when you look at the answer.

[Sean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book. I didn't actually 'finish' it. I did selected problems. Sure wish I had this when I was a kid and had more free time! I need to buy a copy of this to do problems at lunchtime.

[FranklinTV · Rating 4 out of 5]

Only a flick thru, but possible the only great Martin Gardner book you would ever need - now just to read it!

[Stephen Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just because substantially all the puzzles were beyond me is no reason to knock off a star.

[David Franklin]

This might take a while, as I intend to only do a puzzle once a week, but will be interesting to track my success / failure with updates here.