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Welcome to Ian Stewart's strange and magical world of mathematics! In Math Hysteria, Professor Stewart presents us with a wealth of magical puzzles, each one spun around an amazing tale: Counting the Cattle of the Sun; The Great Drain Robbery; and Preposterous Piratical Predicaments; to name but a few. Along the way, we also meet many curious characters: in short, these stories are engaging, challenging, and lots of fun!
List of contents
- Preface
- 1: I know that you know that . . .
- 2: Domino theories
- 3: Turning the tables
- 4: The anthropomurphic principle
- 5: Counting the cattle of the sun
- 6: The great drain robbery
- 7: Two-way jigsaw puzzles
- 8: Tales of a neglected number
- 9: Is Monopoly fair?
- 10: Monopoly revisited
- 11: A guide to computer dating
- 12: Dividing the spoils
- 13: Squaring the square
- 14: The bellows conjecture
- 15: Purposefully piling pyramids
- 16: Be a dots-and-boxes grandmaster
- 17: Choosily chomping chocolate
- 18: Shedding a little darkness
- 19: Preposterous piratical predicaments
- 20: Million-dollar minesweeper
- Further reading
About the author
Ian Stewart is Professor of Mathematics at Warwick University. An active research mathematician, he is also a well-known popularizer of mathematics and related areas of science. In 1995 he was awarded the Royal Society's Michael Faraday award for furthering the public understanding of science; his book Nature's Numbers was shortlisted for the 1996 Rhone-Poulenc Prize for Science Books; and he delivered the 1997 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, televised by the BBC. His many books include From Here to Infinity: a guide to today's mathematics, The Science of Discworld and The Science of Discworld II, What Shape is a Snowflake? and Flatterland.
Summary
Presents magical puzzles, each one of which is spun around a tale such as: Counting the Cattle of the Sun; The Great Drain Robbery; and Preposterous Piratical Predicaments; to name but a few. This work also features many curious characters.
Report
In Math Hysteria, Professor Stewart presents us with a wealth of intriguing, challenging, and fun puzzles, each one spun around an amazing tale. L'Enseignement Mathematique, 2005
