Dover Books on Recreational Math

Give your brain a series of workouts that'll make it bigger and better! This colossal collection of more than 200 puzzles simultaneously provides a relaxing atmosphere for mental play and stimulates brain activity. Created by an internationally renowned puzzle-maker, the challenges involve creative thinking, mathematics, logic, language and wordplay, visuals, and general knowledge. Kick start your neurons at Level 1 with puzzles involving hidden words, math calculations, and logical conundrums. At Level 2, fire up your synapses with cryptograms, scrambled sentences, and visual challenges. And activate your brain at Level 3 with fill-in-the-blanks, search-a-words, magic squares, and much more. If you get stumped, an answer key with complete solutions appears at the end.

Do all problems have solutions? Is complexity synonymous with difficulty? This original collection of mathematical puzzles and paradoxes proves that things aren't always what they seem! Readers will discover that nothing is as easy or as difficult as it looks and that puzzles can have one, several, or no solutions. The fun-filled puzzles begin with The Tricky Hole, a challenge that involves pushing a large coin through a small hole in a sheet of paper without ripping or making any cuts in the paper. Advance to the Elastic Playing Card, in which it's possible to cut a hole into a playing card big enough for someone to climb through. Other incredible puzzles include Elephants and Castles, Trianglized Kangaroo, Honest Dice and Logic Dice, Mind-reading Powers, and dozens more. Complete solutions explain the mathematical realities behind the fantastic-sounding challenges.