'A fantastic and varied collection of problems authored by some of the best puzzle setters around' - Alex Bellos
'A book of delightful puzzles. It's just as good as you'd expect.' - Tim Harford
'A marvellous miscellany of mysteries' - Simon Singh
'Hours of arguing and puzzling. I loved it.' - Matt Parker
This highly engaging collection of 70 puzzles comes from the popular weekly column in New Scientist magazine. You'll find puzzles that are great for sharing with friends at a pub, problems drawn from real-life situations, games with intriguing strategies, and puzzles with such creative and whimsical storylines that they need to be explained to be believed.
With the solutions you'll read the untold back stories behind the puzzles, and a fascinating exploration of related puzzles and mathematical ideas. You'll learn why a particular puzzle adaptation involved talking to an expert in sheep genetics, which solution was thought up by the BBC Radio 5 Drive team, and outside-the-box solutions to apparently straightforward challenges. This book is a must for any lover of puzzles or recreational mathematics.
i: Introduction PART I: THE PUZZLES 1: Pub Puzzles: Puzzles you could do in the pub 1: Creative Addition 2: The H Coins Problem 3: The Book of Numbers 4: Late for the Gate 5: Bus Change 6: Darts Challenge 7: Evening Out 8: Caesar Cipher 9: Symmetric-L 10: Which Door? ii: Virtual(ly) Reality: Puzzles inspired by situations that really happened 11: Bone Idle 12: Sunday Drivers 13: League of Nations 14: Fastest Fingers 15: Reshuffling the Cabinet 16: Amveriric's Boat 17: Express Coffee 18: Seventh Time Lucky? 19: The Two Ewes Day Paradox 20: The Hen Party Dorm iii: All Things Considered: Puzzles featuring everyday objects 21: Cutting the Battenberg 22: A Jigsaw Puzzle 23: The Nine Minute Egg 24: Murphy's Law of Socks 25: Rearranging Books 26: Hidden Faces 27: Birthday Candles 28: Lightbulb Moment 29: BLOXO Cubes 30: Knight Numbers iv: Figuring It Out: Problems that need some calculation 31: Sum Thing Wrong 32: Car Crash Maths 33: Soccerdoku 34: All Squares 35: Squarebot 36: Christmas Gifts 37: Tightwad's Safe 38: The Card Conundrum 39: Martian Food 40: Diffy v: A Matter of Time.: Clocks, time and dates 41: Pieces of Eight 42: Which Flipping Year 43: Six Weeks of Seconds 44: Lara's Birthday 45: The Mountain Pass 46: A Well-Timed Nap 47: Triplet Jump 48: Half Time 49: Seeing Red 50: One of These Days vi: Mind Games: Games with intriguing strategies 51: Catch Up 5 52: Taking the Biscuit 53: A Mexican Standoff 54: My Fair Ladybug 55: Dungeons and Diagrams 56: Ant on a Tetrahedron 57: Chopping Board 58: Éclair-Voyance 59: The Goblin Game 60: Weather or Not vii: Eccentric Tales: Puzzles with peculiar characters 61: The Cake and the Candles 62: Vive la Différence 63: Diamonds are Forever 64: Changing the Guard 65: Yam Tomorrow 66: Blurri-Ness 67: No Time to Try 68: Paintings by Numbers 69: A Piazza of Dominoes 70: Trouble Brewing viii: PART II: Solutions, Back Stories and Commentary ix: PART III x: Hints xi: Contributor Biographies xii: Acknowledgments xiii: Notes
