Mathematical circus: more puzzles, games, paradoxes, and other mathematical entertainments from Scientific American with a preface by Donald Knuth, a postscript from the author, and a new bibliography by Mr. Gardner: thoughts from readers, and 105 drawing

The twenty chapters of this book are nicely balanced between all sorts of stimulating ideas, suggested by down-to-earth objects like match sticks and dollar bills as well as by faraway objects like planets and infinite random walks. We learn about ancient devices for arithmetic and about modern explanations of artificial intelligence. There are feasts here for the eyes and hands as well as for the brain. HOME......Page 0 CONTENTS......Page 9 Preface......Page 11 Introduction......Page 13 Optical Illusions......Page 17 Matches......Page 30 Spheres and Hyperspheres......Page 44 Patterns of Induction......Page 59 Elegant Triangles......Page 70 Random Walks and Gambling......Page 80 Random Walks on the Plane and in Space......Page 89 Boolean Algebra......Page 101 Can Machines Think?......Page 116 Cyclic Numbers......Page 125 Eccentric Chess and Other Problems......Page 137 Dominoes......Page 151 Fibonacci and Lucas Numbers......Page 166 Simplicity......Page 183 'The Rotating Round Table and Other Problems......Page 196 Solar System Oddities......Page 217 Mascheroni Constructions......Page 230 The Abacus......Page 246 Palindromes: Words and Numbers......Page 256 Dollar Bills......Page 267 Postscript......Page 277 Bibliography......Page 283 The chapters of this book first appeared in *Scientific American*'s monthly "Math Games" column. Among the topics covered, let's mention: optical illusions, random walks, Boolean algebra, spheres and hyperspheres, cyclic numbers, Fibonacci numbers. Solutions to all problems.