Game, Set and Math: Enigmas and Conundrums

By Ian Stewart

Book Overview

Twelve essays take a playful approach to the subject, exploring how to play poker over the telephone without the possibility of cheating, how to distinguish plausible fallacies from unbelievable facts, and how to cope mathematically with contorted worms, drunken tennis players, and snakes that eat their own tails.
Former columnist for Scientific American's "Mathematical Games" section, Ian Stewart is a professor at the University of Warwick and the author of Another Fine Math You've Got Me Into... and a score of other books of mathematical recreations, popular science, and science fiction. In this collection of pun-studded fables, he once again exercises his immense talent for transforming complicated concepts of modern mathematics into stimulating, accessible fun. Stewart introduces the different kinds of infinity, explains how to build your own virus, explores the brighter ideas of Pascal and Fermat, and even offers a dozen different puzzles for the twelve days of Christmas.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0486458849
• ISBN13: 9780486458847
• Release Date: March 2007
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 7.6" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Wading through puns to learn mathematics

Like the man who replaced Babe Ruth in the Yankee outfield, Ian Stewart is replacing a legend. When Martin Gardner "retired" as the editor of the Mathematical Games column of Scientific American it was eventually taken over by A. K. Dewdney and became Computer Recreations. Now written by Ian Stewart and called Mathematical Recreations, it is proving a worthy successor to the master. This book is a collection of twelve essays that explain serious mathematics using an unserious approach.Set in a format that is best described as a chatty fable with puns included, the essays are certainly easy to read. However, as is usual with material containing a lot of puns, they do at times distract from the point of the essay. And those points are very good. The topology of a warm blanket, the odds of beating a tennis player that is better than you, logic and the construction of viruses are some of the topics covered in this book. All are presented as mathematical recreations with a minimum of computer involvement.No one could possibly replace Martin Gardner. The best that can be done is to carve a successful, distinctive niche, which is what Ian Stewart has done.Published in Journal of Recreational Mathematics, reprinted with permission.