Peter Winkler, noted research mathematician and puzzle maven, reveals his puzzle collection, compiled over decades. Now, you can share more than 100 of the best (and some of the toughest) mathematical puzzles ever to appear in one volume.
You'll need a love for mathematical reasoning and a streak of determination. You won't need a professional acquaintance with mathematics, a bright high school student has what it takes.
A research mathematician/puzzle maven shares some 100 of the brain-teasers relevant to different areas of the field that he has long been collecting. He provides solutions to such puzzles as "the absent- minded pill-taker," "deterministic poker," and "Washingtons and feminists," but some remain unsolved to date. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Collected over several years by Peter Winkler, of Bell Labs, dozens of elegant, intriguing challenges are presented in Mathematical Puzzles. The answers are easy to explain, but without this book, devilishly hard to find. Creative reasoning is the key to these puzzles. No involved computation or higher mathematics is necessary, but your ability to construct a mathematical proof will be severly tested--even if you are a professional mathematician. For the truly adventurous, there is even a chapter on unsolved puzzles.
