Readers can count on a good time with this book of numerical mysteries. They'll dig into clever number puzzles and gain confidence in their problem-solving skills. Engaging riddles make math, logic, and reasoning fun even for reluctant readers. They'll develop critical and creative thinking skills. Original illustrations bring charm to each puzzle. Helpful hints encourage readers to find every answer. Accessible and interactive, this fun book will be popular in any library.

"Of immense interest to those who enjoy recreational maths and puzzles . . . even the most hardened puzzler will find something new." -- Mathematical Gazette Puzzles are as old as history itself, following an arc like that of technology: centuries of slow progress, followed by rapid expansion in the 1800s, and an explosion of activity in the twentieth century. This collection by bestselling author David Wells, a Cambridge math scholar and teacher, follows that pattern. Its first part is devoted to puzzles from ancient Egypt and Babylon and subsequent sources, featuring those devised by Lewis Carroll, Eduard Lucas, Sam Loyd, and other master puzzlers of the Victorian era. The second part demonstrates the tremendous variety of twentieth-century puzzles. More than 560 puzzles are included, from the "mind sharpeners" of a medieval monk to the eighteenth-century Ladies' Diary, the Hindu Bhakshali manuscript, and riddles and popular rhymes. None requires any mathematics beyond the most elementary algebra and geometry -- and few require even that. Complete answers appear at the end.

Playing with mathematical riddles can be an intriguing and fun-filled pastime — as popular science writer Martin Gardner proves in this entertaining collection. Puzzlists need only an elementary knowledge of math and a will to resist looking up the answer before trying to solve a problem. Written in a light and witty style, Entertaining Mathematical Puzzles is a mixture of old and new riddles, grouped into sections that cover a variety of mathematical topics: money, speed, plane and solid geometry, probability, topology, tricky puzzles, and more. The probability section, for example, points out that everything we do, everything that happens around us, obeys the laws of probability; geometry puzzles test our ability to think pictorially and often, in more than one dimension; while topology, among the "youngest and rowdiest branches of modern geometry," offers a glimpse into a strange dimension where properties remain unchanged, no matter how a figure is twisted, stretched, or compressed. Clear and concise comments at the beginning of each section explain the nature and importance of the math needed to solve each puzzle. A carefully explained solution follows each problem. In many cases, all that is needed to solve a puzzle is the ability to think logically and clearly, to be "on the alert for surprising, off-beat angles...that strange hidden factor that everyone else had overlooked." Fully illustrated, this engaging collection will appeal to parents and children, amateur mathematicians, scientists, and students alike, and may, as the author writes, make the reader "want to study the subject in earnest" and explains "some of the inviting paths that wind away from the problems into lusher areas of the mathematical jungle." 65 black-and-white illustrations.

'The whizz-kid making maths supercool. . . A brilliant book that takes everything we know (and fear) about maths out of the equation - starting with numbers' The Times 'A cheerful, chatty, and charming trip through the world of mathematics. . . Everyone should read this delightful book' Ian Stewart, author of Do Dice Play God? The only numbers in this book are the page numbers. The three main branches of abstract math - topology, analysis, and algebra - turn out to be surprisingly easy to grasp. Or at least, they are when our guide is a math prodigy. With forthright wit and warm charm, Milo Beckman upends the conventional approach to mathematics, inviting us to think creatively about shape and dimension, the infinite and the infinitesimal, symmetries, proofs, and all how all these concepts fit together. Why is there a million dollar prize for counting shapes? Is anything bigger than infinity? And how is the 'truth' of mathematics actually decided? A vivid and wholly original guide to the math that makes the world tick and the planets revolve, Math Without Numbers makes human and understandable the elevated and hypothetical, allowing us to clearly see abstract math for what it is: bizarre, beautiful, and head-scratchingly wonderful.

Stump your friends and family with this fun, challenging math puzzle book! Who knew that math could be so cool? Crammed with games, puzzles, and trivia, The Everything Kids’ Math Puzzles Book puts the fun back into playing with numbers! If you have any fear of math—or are just tired of sitting in a classroom—The Everything Kids’ Math Puzzles Book provides hours of entertainment. You’ll get so caught up in the activities, you won’t even know you’re learning! Inside, you’ll be able to: -Decode hidden messages using Roman numerals -Connect the dots using simple addition and subtraction -Learn to create magic number squares -Use division to answer musical riddles -Match the profession to numerical license plates

British-Israeli recreational mathematician, communicator and educator, Yossi Elran explores in-depth six of the most ingenious math puzzles, exposing their long 'tails': the stories, trivia, quirks and oddities of their history and, of course, the math and mathematicians behind them. In his unique 'talmudic', associative way, Elran shows the hidden connections between Lewis Carroll's 'Cats and Rats' puzzle and the math of taxi driving, a number pyramid magic trick and Hollywood movie fractals, and even how packing puzzles are related to COVID-19!Elran has a great talent for explaining difficult topics — including quantum mechanics, a topic he relates to some original 'operator' puzzles — making the book very accessible for all audiences.With over 40 additional, original puzzles, and touching on dozens of hot math topics, this is a perfect book for math lovers, educators, kids and adults, and anyone who loves a great read.Yossi Elran is co-author of our bestselling The Paper Puzzle Book, and heads the Innovation Center at the Davidson Institute of Science Education, the educational arm of the world-renowned Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.

Party on with puzzles geared to the hip and young, with themes focusing on hot celebrities, chartbusting music, blockbuster movies, must-watch TV, must-have fashions, chilling at the mall, extreme sports, dances, hangin out, cars, romance, the Internet you name it. Plus: a hidden message in every grid."

This book contains reproducible puzzles, picture graphs, mazes, brain teasers, puns, coded messages, and number oddities. Topics in this book cover whole numbers, fractions, decimals, percents, powers and roots, metric measures, perimeters, areas, and volumes, miscellaneous questions, problems, tests and pre-algebra.

The games presented here are mainly 2-person strategic board games and Solitaire Puzzles, when alone. There is a welcome difference between strategic board games and puzzles. A puzzle has a solution and once you’ve solved it, it is not that interesting any more. A strategy game can be played again and again. Chess, the “King of all Board Games”, is not included here as it forms a subject by itself, but there are a few pre-chess puzzles. Bridge, the “Queen of all Card Games”, is also not included as Card games and Dice games involve a certain element of luck; the games here are not based on chance or probability. Apart from Games and Puzzles, there is a small chapter on Mathematical Excursions. These are explorations of non mathematicians like me into the ways of thinking and understanding patterns that mathematicians visualise and analyse for sheer pleasure without any monetary or practical benefit. How can a chess knight’s move over a chess board be beneficial to anybody? But this exploration has been going on for 2000 years. Also, whereas Pythagoras’ Theorem was of great benefit to society, what will proving Fermat’s Theorem accomplish? For a mathematician, the overriding influence of numbers becomes his aim in life.

Math problems are fun when they’re told through engaging puzzles and colorful illustrations. Number puzzles introduce readers to new, entertaining ways to practice math skills, including addition, multiplication, and division. Whether they’re finding a missing number or solving a variety of other kinds of puzzles, readers learn to apply math concepts to creative situations. The solutions to the puzzles are provided in a clear and detailed answer key. This allows readers to check their answers for themselves and discover the steps they need to take to correctly solve each puzzle.