The Unexpected Hanging and Other Mathematical Diversions : with a new afterword and expanded bibliography

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内容简介 · · · · · · 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; paradoxes, anagrams, palindromes and party tricks. . . . He knows, better than most, how many amazing true things there are in the world."--Newsweek HOME CONTENTS NOTE TO THE 1991 EDITION The Paradox of the Unexpected Hanging Knots and Borromean Rings The Transcendental Number e Geometric Dissections Scarne on Gambling The Church of the Fourth Dimension Eight Problems A Matchbox Game-Learning Machine Spirals Rotations and Reflections Peg Solitaire Flatlands Chicago Magic Convention Tests of Divisibility Nine Problems The Eight Queens and Other Chessboard Diversions A Loop of String Curves of Constant Width Rep-Tiles : Replicating Figures on the Plane Thirty-Seven Catch Questions Afterword Bibliography