Numbers that describe themselves. Tournaments where a single loss ends everything. A roomful of people where two will almost certainly share a birthday. Mathematics is full of results that feel impossible until the proof makes them feel inevitable, and Chandrahas M. Halai has assembled a collection of the best of them — problems and puzzles that surprise even people who are comfortable with numbers.
The range here is genuine: self-describing numbers, figurate numbers, the design logic of paper size standards, the Josephus problem (who is the last one standing when a circle eliminates every other person?), the matrix of secret messages, Mendel's peas as a gateway from statistics into genetics, and the beautiful strangeness of summing an infinite geometric series. Each topic is presented to illuminate, not to intimidate — the goal is the click of understanding, not the accumulation of technique.
This is recreational mathematics at its most hospitable: something useful for a curious teenager, a teacher looking for material that will make a classroom sit up, or any adult who was told they were not a maths person and suspects they were misled.
ABOUT THE BOOK: Whether you like math or not, this book will entertain you so much that you will fall in love with math. This book is a mathematical thriller. It will take you on a rollercoaster ride of recreational mathematics having surprising results, counter intuitive outcomes, powerful proofs, perplexing puzzles, challenging problems and amazing applications. From self-describing numbers to fascinating figurate numbers, the design of paper size standards, single knockout elimination tournaments, the birthday problem, handshake problem, summation of infinite geometric series, the matrix of secret messages, Mendel's peas (from statistics to genetics), the last one standing (Josephus problem), and mathematics in motion: Von Neumann and the fly dilemma, this book covers a wide range of terrific topics. There is something in this book for everyone.
