Puzzles, Paradoxes, and Problem Solving

Puzzles, Paradoxes, and Problem Solving PDF Author: Marilyn A. Reba
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1482297930
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 605

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Book Description
A Classroom-Tested, Alternative Approach to Teaching Math for Liberal Arts Puzzles, Paradoxes, and Problem Solving: An Introduction to Mathematical Thinking uses puzzles and paradoxes to introduce basic principles of mathematical thought. The text is designed for students in liberal arts mathematics courses. Decision-making situations that progress

Puzzles, Paradoxes, and Problem Solving

Puzzles, Paradoxes, and Problem Solving PDF Author: Marilyn A. Reba
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1482297930
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 605

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Book Description
A Classroom-Tested, Alternative Approach to Teaching Math for Liberal Arts Puzzles, Paradoxes, and Problem Solving: An Introduction to Mathematical Thinking uses puzzles and paradoxes to introduce basic principles of mathematical thought. The text is designed for students in liberal arts mathematics courses. Decision-making situations that progress

Colossal Book of Mathematics

Colossal Book of Mathematics PDF Author: Martin Gardner
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393020236
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 748

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Book Description
No amateur or math authority can be without this ultimate compendium of classic puzzles, paradoxes, and puzzles from America's best-loved mathematical expert. 320 line drawings.

Puzzles, Paradoxes, and Problem Solving

Puzzles, Paradoxes, and Problem Solving PDF Author: Marilyn A. Reba
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1482227533
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 609

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Book Description
A Classroom-Tested, Alternative Approach to Teaching Math for Liberal Arts Puzzles, Paradoxes, and Problem Solving: An Introduction to Mathematical Thinking uses puzzles and paradoxes to introduce basic principles of mathematical thought. The text is designed for students in liberal arts mathematics courses. Decision-making situations that progress from recreational problems to important contemporary applications develop the critical-thinking skills of non-science and non-technical majors. The logical underpinnings of this textbook were developed and refined throughout many years of classroom feedback and in response to commentary from presentations at national conferences. The text’s five units focus on graphs, logic, probability, voting, and cryptography. The authors also cover related areas, such as operations research, game theory, number theory, combinatorics, statistics, and circuit design. The text uses a core set of common representations, strategies, and algorithms to analyze diverse games, puzzles, and applications. This unified treatment logically connects the topics with a recurring set of solution approaches. Requiring no mathematical prerequisites, this book helps students explore creative mathematical thinking and enhance their own critical-thinking skills. Students will acquire quantitative literacy and appreciation of mathematics through the text’s unified approach and wide range of interesting applications.

Impossible Folding Puzzles and Other Mathematical Paradoxes

Impossible Folding Puzzles and Other Mathematical Paradoxes PDF Author: Gianni A. Sarcone
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 0486795659
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 112

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Book Description
Fun-filled, math-based puzzles include Elephants and Castles, Trianglized Kangaroo, Honest Dice and Logic Dice, Mind-reading Powers, and dozens more. Complete solutions explain the mathematical realities behind the fantastic-sounding challenges.

Impossible Folding Puzzles and Other Mathematical Paradoxes

Impossible Folding Puzzles and Other Mathematical Paradoxes PDF Author: Gianni A. Sarcone
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 0486493512
Category : Games
Languages : en
Pages : 116

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Book Description
Do all problems have solutions? Is complexity synonymous with difficulty? This original collection of mathematical puzzles and paradoxes proves that things aren't always what they seem! Readers will discover that nothing is as easy or as difficult as it looks and that puzzles can have one, several, or no solutions. The fun-filled puzzles begin with The Tricky Hole, a challenge that involves pushing a large coin through a small hole in a sheet of paper without ripping or making any cuts in the paper. Advance to the Elastic Playing Card, in which it's possible to cut a hole into a playing card big enough for someone to climb through. Other incredible puzzles include Elephants and Castles, Trianglized Kangaroo, Honest Dice and Logic Dice, Mind-reading Powers, and dozens more. Complete solutions explain the mathematical realities behind the fantastic-sounding challenges.

Peerless Probability Problems and Other Puzzles

Peerless Probability Problems and Other Puzzles PDF Author: Ivan Moscovich
Publisher: Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.
ISBN: 9781402727450
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Book Description
What makes these puzzles so special? Not only does each one illustrate some of the most classic theories in math, logic, and perception, but they're eye-catching too. Stare at brilliantly hued concentric circles, inspired by the "video active" paintings of the Parisian artist Isia Leviant; if you continue to look long enough, a spinning white blur will appear. Or imagine that you have a drawerful of socks in different colors--7 red, 7 yellow, and 7 green pairs. If you pulled some out in complete darkness, how many would you have to take before you'd be sure of having a pair in each color? Or solve word puzzles, paradoxes, and the mystery of the rolling photo cube.

Epistemology: 50 Puzzles, Paradoxes, and Thought Experiments

Epistemology: 50 Puzzles, Paradoxes, and Thought Experiments PDF Author: Kevin McCain
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000417026
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
In this new kind of entrée to contemporary epistemology, Kevin McCain presents fifty of the field’s most important puzzles, paradoxes, and thought experiments. Assuming no familiarity with epistemology from the reader, McCain titles each case with a memorable name, describes the details of the case, explains the issue(s) to which the case is relevant, and assesses its significance. McCain also briefly reviews the key responses to the case that have been put forward, and provides a helpful list of suggested readings on the topic. Each entry is accessible, succinct, and self-contained. Epistemology: 50 Puzzles, Paradoxes, and Thought Experiments is a fantastic learning tool as well as a handy resource for anyone interested in epistemological issues. Key Features: Though concise overall, offers broad coverage of the key areas of epistemology. Describes each imaginative case directly and in a memorable way, making the cases accessible and easy to remember. Provides a list of Suggested Readings for each case, divided into General Overviews, Seminal Presentations, and Other Important Discussions.

Metaphysics

Metaphysics PDF Author: Bob Doyle
Publisher: I-Phi Press
ISBN: 9780983580263
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
This book is an introduction to The Metaphysicist, a special sectionof the Information Philosopher website, a work in progress on someclassical questions in philosophy that 20th-century logical positivistsand analytic language philosophers dis-solved as pseudo-problems.The Metaphysicist analyzes the information content in twentyclassic problems in metaphysics - Abstract Entities, Being andBecoming, Causality, Chance, Change, Coinciding Objects,Composition (Parts and Wholes), Constitution, Free Will orDeterminism, God and Immortality, Identity, Individuation,Mind-Body Problem, Modality, Necessity or Contingency,Persistence, Possibility and Actuality, Space and Time, Truth,Universals, Vagueness, and the 20th-century problem of WaveParticleDuality.The Metaphysicist also includes pages on the classic paradoxes andpuzzles used for millennia to wrestle with these metaphysical problemsThe Debtor's Paradox, Dion and Theon, The GrowingArgument, The Infinite Regress, The Problem of the Many,The Ship of Theseus, The Sorites Puzzle, The Statue and theClay, and Tibbles, the Cat.Information philosophy is a new philosophical methodology thatgoes "beyond logic and language" to the underlying informationstructures in the cosmos, in the world, in biological systems, andin the human mind - structures without which logic, language, andscience would be impossible.416 pages, 6 figures, index, bibliography.

Algorithmic Puzzles

Algorithmic Puzzles PDF Author: Anany Levitin
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0199740445
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
Algorithmic puzzles are puzzles involving well-defined procedures for solving problems. This book will provide an enjoyable and accessible introduction to algorithmic puzzles that will develop the reader's algorithmic thinking. The first part of this book is a tutorial on algorithm design strategies and analysis techniques. Algorithm design strategies — exhaustive search, backtracking, divide-and-conquer and a few others — are general approaches to designing step-by-step instructions for solving problems. Analysis techniques are methods for investigating such procedures to answer questions about the ultimate result of the procedure or how many steps are executed before the procedure stops. The discussion is an elementary level, with puzzle examples, and requires neither programming nor mathematics beyond a secondary school level. Thus, the tutorial provides a gentle and entertaining introduction to main ideas in high-level algorithmic problem solving. The second and main part of the book contains 150 puzzles, from centuries-old classics to newcomers often asked during job interviews at computing, engineering, and financial companies. The puzzles are divided into three groups by their difficulty levels. The first fifty puzzles in the Easier Puzzles section require only middle school mathematics. The sixty puzzle of average difficulty and forty harder puzzles require just high school mathematics plus a few topics such as binary numbers and simple recurrences, which are reviewed in the tutorial. All the puzzles are provided with hints, detailed solutions, and brief comments. The comments deal with the puzzle origins and design or analysis techniques used in the solution. The book should be of interest to puzzle lovers, students and teachers of algorithm courses, and persons expecting to be given puzzles during job interviews.

Entertaining Mathematical Puzzles

Entertaining Mathematical Puzzles PDF Author: Martin Gardner
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 0486252116
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 141

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Book Description
Playing with mathematical riddles can be an intriguing and fun-filled pastime — as popular science writer Martin Gardner proves in this entertaining collection. Puzzlists need only an elementary knowledge of math and a will to resist looking up the answer before trying to solve a problem. Written in a light and witty style, Entertaining Mathematical Puzzles is a mixture of old and new riddles, grouped into sections that cover a variety of mathematical topics: money, speed, plane and solid geometry, probability, topology, tricky puzzles, and more. The probability section, for example, points out that everything we do, everything that happens around us, obeys the laws of probability; geometry puzzles test our ability to think pictorially and often, in more than one dimension; while topology, among the "youngest and rowdiest branches of modern geometry," offers a glimpse into a strange dimension where properties remain unchanged, no matter how a figure is twisted, stretched, or compressed. Clear and concise comments at the beginning of each section explain the nature and importance of the math needed to solve each puzzle. A carefully explained solution follows each problem. In many cases, all that is needed to solve a puzzle is the ability to think logically and clearly, to be "on the alert for surprising, off-beat angles...that strange hidden factor that everyone else had overlooked." Fully illustrated, this engaging collection will appeal to parents and children, amateur mathematicians, scientists, and students alike, and may, as the author writes, make the reader "want to study the subject in earnest" and explains "some of the inviting paths that wind away from the problems into lusher areas of the mathematical jungle." 65 black-and-white illustrations.