Product Description

Noted expert selects 70 "short" puzzles. The Returning Explorer, The Mutilated Chessboard, Scrambled Box Tops, and 67 more. Solutions included.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4662 in Books
• Published on: 1994-11-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 96 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780486281520
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Customer Reviews

Puzzles requiring intermediate mathematical skills
Marvelous book. I found it better than many books but my friends, who were not that conversant with intermediate mathematics did not like it much. Though this book doesn't require a knowledge of calculus, people who have this level might appreciate the book more. But it has more to do with mathematical 'thinking' rather than mathematics itself.

So get this one if you are good at mathematical thinking and want to challenge yourself. If you are weak in math and would rather read puzzles that require only logic, cleverness, and lateral thinking only, this may not be the one for you.

The best of one of the best
Martin Gardner is the grand old man of puzzles and recreational mathematics. I recommend this book for intermediary and advanced puzzle enthusiasts - beginners might find some of these too challenging.

Intermediary puzzlists will find the pleasures of often working at the upper edge of their skills. The solutions at the end of the book are complete enough so that even those who didn't get it right the first time will get aha insights.

The book is well worth its price even for puzzle enthusiasts. Even I knew many of the puzzles beforehand - classics indeed - but the notes in the solutions often add a twist, a clever solution or a human interest point of view.

The age recommendation of amazon.com - 4-8 years - is probably either an insider joke or a typo. I'd recommend this book to people between 14-80 years of age, and even over.

A great collection of diverse puzzles
I have accumulated quite a few puzzle books and was never fully satisfied with any of them until I heard about Martin Gardner and decided to pick up one his books. The puzzles are diverse, ranging from word problems to geometry problems.

The solutions given are very complete and actually take up the majority of the pages in the book.

On a somewhat related note, if you happen to be interviewing in the technical fields you may run across interviewers that ask brain teasers. You'll find many of those problems (or ones that are very similar) in this book. For technical interviewing this makes a good study guide.