Math Games Books - Page 12

Winning Ways for Your Mathematical Plays, Vol. 2

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Editorial Review:

In the second of a four volume set, the authors of the definitive book on mathematical games have a Change of Heart. This carefully revised classic bends the rules of Volume 1 to apply to games that may continue indefinitely or in which "winning" is not necessarily making the last move, such as Cut-cake and Loopy Hackenbush. This essential companion to Volume 1 explores "partizan" games of infinitely many positions and "loopy" unending and impartial games with the same playful tone and rigorous mathematical analysis perfected in the first volume of the classic work.

The Green Book of Mathematical Problems

Kenneth Hardy, Kenneth S. Williams

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Good book to buy 5 out of 5 stars.
12 of 15 people found this review helpful.

The Green book of Mathematical Problems is definitely a great book. It contains challenging brainteasers that will be of interest to anyone interested in undergraduate-level mathematical problems dealing with real numbers, differential equations, integrals, polynomials, sets and other mathematical topics. This book offers a selection of 100 problems with hints and solutions. The hints are very helpful and the solutions are easy to follow. The book isn't expensive. So it's a good choice.

100 of'em!!!!! 3 out of 5 stars.
10 of 18 people found this review helpful.

this book is directed towards high school students preparing to take mathematics competetion such as the CMC and IPO. the book contains 100 thinking skills math question with solutions. Being a high school student (with a huge intrest for math) i was able to solve 71 problems, but i must admit that i really did face ALOT of problems solving some of them.(wait till you see the solution for question #5, #8, #41 and 46 Recomended to any high school student prepared to sit any exam or have an intrest for pure thinking skills math qestions, but if you are looking for something REALLY hard then you best look somewhere else...

Editorial Review:

Rich selection of 100 practice problems — with hints and solutions — for students preparing for the William Lowell Putnam and other undergraduate-level mathematical competitions. Features real numbers, differential equations, integrals, polynomials, sets, other topics. Hours of stimulating challenge for math buffs at varying degrees of proficiency. References.

Dissections: Plane and Fancy

Greg N. Frederickson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Slicing and splicing for enjoyment 4 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Dissections are one area of mathematics where theory usually plays a secondary role to intuition. While the discovery of a solution may take an enormous amount of trial and effort, understanding it is generally a simple verification. For these reasons, dissections can aptly be described as an area of popular mathematics. The puzzles of Sam Loyd were extremely popular, with one even described as having been a national craze in the United States, and some of his most diabolical were dissections. His English counterpart and rival was Henry Dudeney, whose collected works of puzzles also contains many dissections.
As befits the development of abstract geometry centuries ago, the art of dissection goes all the way back to the age of Plato. Starting with a geometric shape and cutting it into pieces that can be rearranged to form another shape is something that clearly is more of a hobby than a career, although it is possible that it may have some applications in space filling.
Art and hobbies aside, this is a fun book to explore. Since the subject matter is the slicing and splicing of geometric figures, most of the results are presented as diagrams, making the solutions easy to understand. One thought constantly leapt to mind when I was examining some of the diagrams, "How did they think of doing that?" Obvious only after the fact, many dissections are hardly something that would easily leap to mind. Additional puzzles are interspersed throughout the text and solutions to all are included at the end of the book.
The public loves puzzles, as the popularity of some game shows and regular puzzle columns in newspapers and magazines demonstrates. In this book, you will find some of the most challenging of dissection type puzzles, sure to keep you interested from the opening slice to the final splice.

Published in Journal of Recreational Mathematics, reprinted with permission.

Editorial Review:

Can you cut an octagon into five pieces and rearrange them into a square? How about turning a star into a pentagon? These are just two of the infinite challenges of geometric dissections, the mathematical art of cutting figures into pieces that can be rearranged to form other figures, using as few pieces as possible. Through the ages, geometric dissections have fascinated puzzle fans and great mathematicians alike. Here are dissections known to Plato and exciting new discoveries alike. Greg Frederickson explains solution methods carefully, assuming only a basic knowledge of high school geometry. This beautifully illustrated book provides hours of enjoyment for every mathematical puzzle enthusiast.

Mathematical Adventures for Students and Amateurs (Spectrum)

David F. Hayes

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Plants a set of viable mathematical seeds 4 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Some of the most prominent mathematicians have delivered a talk in the Bay Area Mathematical Adventures (BAMA) series. It is a sequence of lectures for high school age people designed to expose them to some of the beautiful aspects of mathematics. However, the lectures are open to others, so many teachers, middle school students, parents and other interested adults have attended. This book is a written collection of some of the lectures, although none is a literal recording of the event.
Some of the lecture titles and topics in the book are:

*) "Prime Numbers and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence", a discussion of how messages to aliens should be organized along prime number lines.
*) "Juggling Patterns, Passing and Posets", a mathematical explanation of the different actions used in juggling.
*) "Probability and Surprise", how non-intuitive statistical results were used to teach mathematics to French psychology students.
*) "Space Shuttle Geometry", a description of good and bad ways to verify that an o-ring is indeed round. This is presented in the context of the failure of the o-rings that led to the destruction of the space shuttle Challenger.
*) "Breaking Driver's License Codes", where a mathematician tries to determine the algorithm whereby the personal information about a driver is used to compute the personal identifier that they are assigned.

The purpose of the series is to instill in the listeners an appreciation for how widely mathematics is used and in that respect, the organizers and lecturers have clearly succeeded. Of course, some of the topics require more mathematical knowledge than others, but none is beyond the stated bounds. If they think about it hard enough and in the proper way, the determined high school student will be able to understand every adventure.
Teachers of college mathematics will also find some material for their classes in the book. Each adventure could be used as the foundation for a lecture in some unusual uses of mathematics or the primer that leads to a more detailed investigation of a mathematical topic. This is not a popular work in mathematics, the purpose is to plant a seed of mathematical interest and all of the seeds in the book are viable.

Published in Journal of Recreational Mathematics, reprinted with permission.

Editorial Review:

This is a partial record of the Bay Area Math Adventures (BAMA), a lecture series for high school students (and incidentally their teachers, parents, and other interested adults) hosted by San Jose State and Santa Clara Universities in the San Francisco Bay Area. These lectures are aimed primarily at talented high school students and as a result, the mathematics in some cases is far from what one would expect to see in talks at this level. There are serious mathematical issues addressed here. The authors are distinguished mathematicians; some are bright newcomers while others have been well known in mathematical circles for decades. We hope that this book will capture some of the magic of these talks that have filled auditoriums at the host schools almost monthly for several years. Join the students in sharing these mathematical adventures.

The Pursuit of Perfect Packing

Tomaso Aste, Denis Weaire

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Excellent introduction to packing 4 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

A good starting discussion for packing problems, even though several issues are not covered (look at Erich's Packing Center for the next edition). Chapters cover Circle packings, sphere packings, the Hales proof, seed shapes, honeycombs, bubbles, atoms and crystals, fractal aggregates, The Giant's Causeway, buckyballs, higher dimensional packings, and various odds and ends. There are lots of illustrations and good discussions. I would have prefered for more to be packed into the book. Still, it's the best introductory book on packing I know of.

Editorial Review:

In 1998 Thomas Hales dramatically announced the solution of a problem that has long teased eminent mathematicians: what is the densest possible arrangement of identical spheres? The Pursuit of Perfect Packing recounts the story of this problem and many others that have to do with packing things together. The examples are taken from mathematics, physics, biology, and engineering, including the arrangement of soap bubbles in foam, atoms in a crystal, the architecture of the bee's honeycomb, and the structure of the Giant's Causeway. Using an informal style and with key references, the book also includes brief accounts of the lives of many of the scientists who devoted themselves to problems of packing over many centuries, together with wry comments on their efforts. It is an entertaining introduction to the field for both specialists and the more general public.

Mega-Fun Math Games: 70 Quick-and-Easy Games to Build Math Skills (Grades 2-5)

Dr. Michael Schiro, Anna Walker

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Great Activities 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

I run a math club at my children's school. I am always in search of activities to use. This book has great activities, especially for first through fourth grades. It would be a wonderful book to use at home, especially if your child doesn't like math. This would be a great way to show them that math is fun!

Editorial Review:

70 Quick-and-Easy Games to Build Math Skills
Hands-on games to help you reinforce key math skills including addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, probability, and factors. All games are easy to make and play. Includes reproducibles.

Challenges in Geometry: for Mathematical Olympians Past and Present

Christopher J. Bradley

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Editorial Review:

The International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) is the World Championship Competition for High School students, and is held annually in a different country. More than eighty countries are involved.
Containing numerous exercises, illustrations, hints and solutions, presented in a lucid and thought- provoking style, this text provides a wide range of skills required in competitions such as the Mathematical Olympiad.
More than fifty problems in Euclidean geometry involving integers and rational numbers are presented. Early chapters cover elementary problems while later sections break new ground in certain areas and area greater challenge for the more adventurous reader. The text is ideal for Mathematical Olympiad training and also serves as a supplementary text for student in pure mathematics, particularly number theory and geometry.
Dr. Christopher Bradley was formerly a Fellow and Tutor in Mathematics at Jesus College, Oxford, Deputy Leader of the British Mathematical Olympiad Team and for several years Secretary of the British Mathematical Olympiad Committee.

A Gardner's Workout: Training the Mind and Entertaining the Spirit

Martin Gardner

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Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Martin Gardner, as the Master of Mathematical Games and Puzzles, has used his personal exuberance and his fascination with puzzles and magic to entice a wide range of readers into a world of mathematical discovery. As the author of Scientific American's "Mathematical Games" column for 25 years, he gained a large following among puzzlers, magicians, and mathematicians. In the years since then, Gardner has continued to write articles for academic journals and popular magazines. Forty-one of those pieces, never before published in book form, are collected in this volume. Truly a treat for Martin Gardner's many fans, the articles span a wide range of topics. They include games of chance (and why a "computer" will always beat a human player), word ladders and mathematical word play games, tiling puzzles, magic squares, computer and calculator "magic" tricks, and other mathematical puzzles. Providing the tools to furnish our all-too-sluggish minds with an athletic workout, Gardner's problems foster an agility of the mind as they entertain.

Puzzles 101: A Puzzlemaster's Challenge

Nobuyuki Yoshigahara

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A good collection of addictive puzzlets 4 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Nob is a revered Japanese puzzlist so the publisher (AK Peters) ought to be commended for giving us the first English translation of his many excellent puzzle books - this was long overdue.

As far as content is concerned, this book has mostly penny&matches and cut-up&reassemble type puzzles - so in a sense,it is a variation on an already known theme.

However, most of the puzzles have a fresh twist which makes them thoroughly engaging -- but quite a few are blood-letting head scratchers!

The book is well illustrated and has a nice introduction by Nob.

Let's hope for more of Nob's puzzle books from AK Peters!

Editorial Review:

What's so fascinating about puzzles? Nearly everyone can be intrigued to solve a riddle or a puzzle and try them out on their friends. This collection of puzzles from the internationally acclaimed puzzlemaster NOB covers a wide variety of puzzles from physical to visual, conceptual to mathematical. Solutions are provided in a separate section, which will help novices get on the right track and will give seasoned aficionados a chance to check their work.

The Big Sudoku Brain Workout: 150 Puzzles for a Younger Mind

Tom Sheldon

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

"Use it or lose it." 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Believing that the "occurrence of neurodegenerative disease is less marked in people who have busy and varied lifestyles"--i.e., those who keep their bodies AND their brains active--Tom Sheldon, author and expert in "bioinformatics" and artificial intelligence, has devised a book of one hundred fifty "puzzles for a younger mind."

While people are not stopping me on the street to exclaim about my "younger mind," I can attest to the fact that these are terrific puzzles, a great way to fill odd moments of time--those periods too short to read. For those unfamiliar with sudoku, each square puzzle consists of a grid containing nine squares, each of which contains nine small boxes within it--81 boxes for the whole puzzle. The objective of the puzzle is to fill in the boxes so that each horizontal line of overall puzzle contains the numbers 1 - 9, each vertical column contains 1 - 9, and each of the nine squares contains numbers 1 - 9. Some numbers are given in advance so that puzzler can use them to build on, the easy puzzles containing more given numbers than the "fiendish" ones.

The book is well designed. Approximately 5" x 8" in size, each page contains only one large puzzle, providing plenty of space for writing numerical possibilities into each square on the more difficult puzzles. Four levels of difficulty and an introduction containing helpful hints for solving puzzles provide plenty of options for the beginner, and the most difficult level will challenge even the seasoned sudoku fan. An answer key is in the back of the book, especially helpful for the beginner who may want to check some decisions as s/he goes along.

With a binding sturdy enough to permit folding the book in half to work on the puzzles on the left side, the book is inexpensive and easy to tote around in purse or briefcase. A few pages of blank forms would be helpful, and some might prefer a spiral binding, but this is a terrific book, and few fans will quibble about those minor issues in view of the puzzles' excellence. Experts may want to check the author's two other offerings: _Sudoku Genius_ and _Sudoku Master Class_. n Mary Whipple