- Paperback: 210 pages
- Publisher: University of Chicago Press; Reprinted edition edition (1 Sep 1988)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0226282546
- ISBN-13: 978-0226282541
- Product Dimensions: 20.3 x 13.2 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
955,587 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #20 in Books > Fiction > Science Fiction > Gaming > Strategy
- #22 in Books > Sports, Hobbies & Games > Hobbies & Games > Role-Playing & War Games > Strategy
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Product Description
Product Description
These clearly and cleverly presented mathematical recreations of paradoxes and paperfolding, Moebius variations and mnemonics both ancient and modern delight and perplex while demonstating principles of logic, probability, geometry, and other mathematical fields. "A classic."--Andrew Rothery, Times Education Supplement "Martin Gardner has turned a trick as neat as any in the book itself. He has selected a group of diversions which are not only entertaining but mathematically meaningful as well. The result is a work which is rewarding on almost every level of mathematical achievement."--Miriam Hecht, Iscripta Mathematica
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
FLEXAGONS are paper polygons, folded from straight or crooked strips of paper, which have the fascinating property of changing their faces when they are "flexed." Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
FLEXAGONS are paper polygons, folded from straight or crooked strips of paper, which have the fascinating property of changing their faces when they are "flexed." Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book is still as good as it was when I first purchased "Mathematical Puzzles and Diversions" in the 1970's. That's because it is the same book I bought then.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
5 reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
A delight for young and old
1 Feb 2001
Format:Paperback
Martin Gardners column "Mathematical Games" was in the magazine "Scientific American" for so long that he was more than an institution. This was the first of his books to take some of the ideas from the many columns and present them in volume format.
I first came across it in a British edition titled "Mathematical Puzzles and Diversions" in my early teens. From memory it took me around three weeks and two rolls of adding machine tape to finish with the hexaflexagons (don't ask, just buy the book) in the first chapter.
Mr Gardner deserves his reputation as a writer who can simplify complex subjects without talking down to the audience and this is well demonstrated in this volume. Some of the later chapters deal with parts of probability and game theory that skirt around some complex maths while someone with little mathematical ability (such as myself) finds it easy to follow along. The prose is light and easily read while the subject matter is entertaining.
I would recommend this book for someone mathematically inclined in their early teens or anyone in their mid teens or later. If you have a child capable of mathematical and/or logical thought who is getting turned off mathematics by the rigors and dullness of school then this volume may well turn the trick - I know it was influential in convincing me that it was my schooling and not my mind that had ruined my maths ability. I give it only four stars as it is now starting to show its age, otherwise it would have five.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Reeks of Awesomeness!
10 Nov 2001
Format:Paperback
After a long afternoon of studying ordinary differential equations, computer science, and japanese, it is great to find a book like this that sucks you right in, absorbs your brain for a couple of hours, and then inspires you to cut, paste, & fold paper. What you see absolutely reeks of awesomeness. I love Martin Gardner! (Last month's reading, Knotted Doughnuts, was equally fun!)
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Simply excellent
8 July 2004
Format:Paperback
This book is worth getting if only to find out how to make a hexaflexagon. The problems in it are truly absorbing.
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