Perplexing Puzzles and Tantalizing Teasers

Martin Gardner was a renowned author who published over 70 books on subjects from science and math to poetry and religion. He also had a lifelong passion for magic tricks and puzzles. Well known for his mathematical games column in Scientific American and his "Trick of the Month" in Physics Teacher magazine, Gardner attracted a loyal following with his intelligence, wit, and imagination.Martin Gardner: A Remembrance The worldwide mathematical community was saddened by the death of Martin Gardner on May 22, 2010. Martin was 95 years old when he died, and had written 70 or 80 books during his long lifetime as an author. Martin's first Dover books were published in 1956 and 1957: Mathematics, Magic and Mystery, one of the first popular books on the intellectual excitement of mathematics to reach a wide audience, and Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, certainly one of the first popular books to cast a devastatingly skeptical eye on the claims of pseudoscience and the many guises in which the modern world has given rise to it. Both of these pioneering books are still in print with Dover today along with more than a dozen other titles of Martin's books. They run the gamut from his elementary Codes, Ciphers and Secret Writing, which has been enjoyed by generations of younger readers since the 1980s, to the more demanding The New Ambidextrous Universe: Symmetry and Asymmetry from Mirror Reflections to Superstrings, which Dover published in its final revised form in 2005. To those of us who have been associated with Dover for a long time, however, Martin was more than an author, albeit a remarkably popular and successful one. As a member of the small group of long-time advisors and consultants, which included NYU's Morris Kline in mathematics, Harvard's I. Bernard Cohen in the history of science, and MIT's J. P. Den Hartog in engineering, Martin's advice and editorial suggestions in the formative 1950s helped to define the Dover publishing program and give it the point of view which — despite many changes, new directions, and the consequences of evolution — continues to be operative today. In the Author's Own Words:"Politicians, real-estate agents, used-car salesmen, and advertising copy-writers are expected to stretch facts in self-serving directions, but scientists who falsify their results are regarded by their peers as committing an inexcusable crime. Yet the sad fact is that the history of science swarms with cases of outright fakery and instances of scientists who unconsciously distorted their work by seeing it through lenses of passionately held beliefs." "A surprising proportion of mathematicians are accomplished musicians. Is it because music and mathematics share patterns that are beautiful?" — Martin Gardner

• Introduction 1. Ridiculous Riddles 2. Handies 3. Fun with Palindromes 4. The Lost Star 5. Find the Hidden Animals 6. Tricky Questions 7. The Five Airy Creatures 8. The Maze of the Minotaur 9. The Dime-and-Penny Switcheroo 10. A Dozen Droodles for Nimble Noodles 11. Tantalizing Toothpick Teasers 12. Read the Thriftigrams 13. More Tricky Questions 14. Mr. Bushyhead's Problem 15. Sneaky Arithmetic 16. The Careless Sign Painter 17. The Undecidables 18. Sally's Silly Walk 19. Still More Tricky Questions 20. Guess The Typitoons 21. The Fish and the Robot 22. The Christmas-Star Puzzle 23. The Boring Bookworm 24. The Triangular Turkey 25. Find the Best Words 26. Zoo-lulus 27. Unscramble the Beast 28. Solve the Animal Equations 29. The Undecidable Stairway 30. More Sneaky Arithmetic 31. How Clever are You? 32. Folding-Money Fun 33. "Knock, Knock ... Who's There?" 34. Word Bowling 35. The Great Bracelet Mystery 36. And Still More Tricky Questions 37. A Pair of Eye Twiddlers 38. The Puzzling Barbershop Sign 39. The Amazing Mr. Mazo 40. Mother Hubbard's Cupboard 41. Solve the Bird Equations 42. The Last Tricky Questions 43. The Concealed Proverb 44. The Dime-and-Nickel Switcheroo 45. Mrs. Windbag's Gift 46. More Eye Twiddlers 47. Shake Out the Cherry Answers