Midnight Math: 12 Terrific Math Games
by Peter Ledwon
Only slightly surreal, three mouse-like critters have a good time playing math games while the household sleeps. Each game is simple enough for basic arithmetic skills: addition, subtraction, and multiplication, and the games are mildly amusing. Great illustrations. There is an answer page, with further suggestions for math games.
$15.95
Moral Calculations: Game Theory, Logic and Human Frailty
by Lazlo Mero
Hungarian mathematician Laszlo Mero introduces us to the basics of John von Neumann's game theory and shows how it illuminates such aspects of human psychology as altruism, competition, and politics. Mero covers such concepts as zero-sum games; Prisoner's Dilemma; the game of Chicken (played with cars in Rebel Without A Cause), where logic proves that the rational strategy is to be irrational; how to be kind to your lover through game theory; and when the Golden Rule works and when it leads to disaster. Mero shows how game theory is applicable to fields ranging from physics to evolutionary biology, and explores the role of rational thinking in the context of real-life situations ranging from doorway etiquette to the nuclear arms race. He also explains how moral dilemmas arise; how to act rationally and ethically when they do; and how the intersection of rationality and irrationality inevitably becomes what we call "wisdom." This fascinating, urbane book shows us how we can better understand ethical behavior.
$28.00
Moscow Puzzles: 359 Mathematical Recreations
by Boris Kordemsky
We have carried this book for years. It has been a classic in the former Soviet Union since it was first published in 1956, and it remains just as entertaining today. A master at making math fun for his high school students, Boris Kordemsky loaded this clever collection with a wide variety of math and logic related games and puzzles dealing with magic squares, tricky weights and measures, properties of numbers, mathematical tricks, and more.
$8.95
1000 Play Thinks: Puzzles, Paradoxes, Illusions & Game
by Ivan Moscovich, Tim Robinson, & Ian Stewart
Play Thinks is the first and only book where science, math, and art puzzles all come together. Broken down by chapter, Play Thinks challenges with 12 basic categories: Geometry; Points & Lines; Graphs & Networks; Curves & Circles; Shapes & Polygons; Patterns; Dissections; Numbers; Logic & Probability; Topology; Science; and Perception.
"The most wide-ranging, visually appealing, entertaining, gigantic collection of brainteasers since Sam Loyd's Cyclopedia of puzzles almost a century ago." So says Will Shortz, Crossword editor of the New York Times and NPR's Puzzlemaster. He's Right! This book is the most compulsive, head-scratching, and (at 5.08 pounds) gargantuan puzzle book ever.
An obsessive collection of 1,000 challenges, puzzles, riddles, illusions-both original as well as must-do classics. Jam-packed on the page and illustrated throughout in full-color, with a visual for each entry, the book, opened anywhere, is like a call to action. And once started it's hard to stop, because at the end of every successfully completed game the puzzle-solver feels smart, successful, and at one with the beauty of mathematics.
Created by Ivan Moscovich, A special Bonus Round is included for die-hard puzzlers who, after all that, still haven't had enough. An easy-to-read key at the top of each game ranks its difficulty on a scale of 1 to 10. The lie-flat spiral binding makes the hefty book completely reader-friendly. So do the answers in the back. I would add one more comment: Every math teacher should have one. Then their math classes would achieve the level of interest they only dream about.
$29.95
Puzzles Mazes and Numbers
by Charles Snape & Heather Scott
This book contains many problems, investigations, and games, some connected with mazes and others linked to the historical development of mathematics. Explore the mathematical mansion, investigate the Chinese triangle, crack a code to find a secret message. From the riddles of the ancient Babylonians to the Rubik Cube, there is something to interest everyone.
$23.95
Slicing Pizzas, Racing Turtles, and Further Adventures of Applied Mathematics
by Robert B. Banks
How fast should you run in a rainstorm to best protect your shoes? As in his previous book, Towing Icebergs, Falling Dominoes (1998), Banks turns trivial questions into mind-expanding demonstrations of the magical powers of mathematics. Nor does he restrict himself to trivial questions: his shrewd analyses coax secrets out of such weighty topics as global population growth and the melting of the polar ice caps. Although a few teasers require calculus or spherical trigonometry, Banks can generally get us there with nothing more daunting than algebra and geometry--generously garnished with his unpredictable wit. Not a math textbook which teaches readers how to solve set types of problems, this collection of puzzles does something far more important: it teaches us how to delight in unexpected challenges to our numerical imagination. To fully appreciate these problem-solving skills, you need to be comfortable with advanced calculus or basic differential equations (probably at the halfway point of these courses). On the other hand, students who are taking these courses should read Banks' books just to see what they are really learning. Math really comes to alive through these pages.
$16.95
Time Travel & Other Mathematical Bewilderments
by Martin Gardner
From coincidences that seem to violate the laws of time and space, to the perplexities of the rubber rope, to the centuries-old delights of tangram play, the puzzles, problems, and paradoxes presented in this book reveal just how enlightening and entertaining mathematical recreations can be.This is the 12th collection of brain teasers by Mr. Gardner, as published in the Scientific American.
$14.95
Tricky Lateral Thinking Puzzles
by Paul Sloane, Des MacHale, & Myron Miller
You're given a statement about a situation you have to use as a starting point to arrive at a particular explanation or solution. Often there can be many possible scenarios to explain the puzzle, but the challenge is you have to find the "right" answer. Typically the puzzles contain insufficient information for you to immediately figure out the solution (clues are provided). When you get stuck, attack the problem from a new direction--think laterally! Not only are these puzzles fun, they also help to develop skills in questioning, deduction, logic, and, of course, lateral thinking. Answers: It's January and he is writing the date of the year on all the checks in his checkbook to avoid putting last year's date by mistake; He was an astronaut in a space ship.
$6.95
Tricky Mindtrap Puzzles
by Detective Shadow
An example: Photos show close-ups of ordinary objects, and offer a tantalizing clue in words, often a taunting rhyme or quotation. The answers appear on another page, where you see the objects the way you usually look at them. Have you ever really looked at a single red-and-white spiral on a candy cane? Could you recognize a notch on the gear of a can opener? Or, a pair of kernels of corn? Of course you've seen them all before. They're so familiar, they're almost impossible to recognize! In addition, there are lots of trick questions: Is there a Fourth of July in Canada? Yes! It's the day after July 3!
$6.95
Unexpected Hanging: And Other Mathematical Diversions
by Martin Gardner
Seasoned with Gardner's interest in the history and philosophy of science, this delightful book is a treasure-trove of puzzles, anecdotes, games, and logical theory. These intriguing problems, collected from Gardner's Scientific American columns, involve knots, interlocking rings, rotations and reflections, logical paradox, two-dimensional universes, chess strategies, and gambling odds. Gardner conjures problems that are both profound and silly; exquisite truths and outrageous absurdities.
$16.00
AHA! Gotcha: Paradoxes to Puzzle and Delight
AHA! AHA! Insight