Best Selling Books by Martin Gardner

Mathematical puzzles from origami to recreational logic, from digital roots and dudeny puzzles to the diabolic square, from the golden ratio to the generalized ham sandwish theorem.

Offers a collection of assorted mathematical games and puzzles

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.

Previously published separately, the two books aha! Gotcha and aha! Insight are here combined as a single volume. The aha! books, as they are referred to by fans of Martin Gardner, contain 144 wonderful puzzles from the reigning king of recreational mathematics. In this combined volume, you will find puzzles ranging over geometry, logic, probability, statistics, number, time, combinatorics, and word play. Gardner calls these puzzles aha! problems, that ''seem difficult, and indeed are difficult if you go about trying to solve them in traditional ways. But if you can free your mind from standard problem solving techniques, you may be receptive to an aha! reaction that leads immediately to a solution. Don''t be discouraged if, at first, you have difficulty with these problems. After a while you will begin to catch the spirit of offbeat, nonlinear thinking, and you may be surprised to find your aha! ability improving.''

Professor Picanumba has dozens of surefire tricks up his sleeve — and he''s willing to show junior mathemagicians how to predict the answers to 88 word and number challenges. Includes solutions and illustrations.

Subtitled, Ten years of remarkable experiments with renowned clairvoyant Pavel Stepanek. Gardner details the weaknesses in the testing. No literature citations. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Published in 1955 under the direction of psychiatrist William Sadler, The Urantia Book is the largest and most sophisticated work of New Age literature ever produced. Well-known skeptic and acclaimed popular science writer Martin Gardner presents a complete history of the Urantia movement, from its beginnings in the early 20th century to the present day.

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.

Explains various methods used in cryptography and presents examples to help readers in breaking secret codes

A famous puzzlemeister presents 103 perplexing brainteasers, anagrams, and rebus and logic puzzles. There are clues — and humor — in the 69 whimsical illustrations, plus solutions for anyone who gets stumped.

Martin Gardner''s Mathematical Games columns in Scientific American inspired and entertained several generations of mathematicians and scientists. Gardner in his crystal-clear prose illuminated corners of mathematics, especially recreational mathematics, that most people had no idea existed. His playful spirit and inquisitive nature invite the reader into an exploration of beautiful mathematical ideas along with him. These columns were both a revelation and a gift when he wrote them; no one--before Gardner--had written about mathematics like this. They continue to be a marvel. This volume was originally published in 1989 and contains columns from published 1976-1978. This 1997 MAA edition contains three new columns written specifically for this volume including the resurrection of the lamented Dr. Matrix.

This newly updated edition of a well-known work explores a pair of modern science''s most fundamental discoveries: the asymmetric DNA helix and the overthrow of parity (left-right symmetry) in particle physics. Absorbing and thought-provoking, The New Ambidextrous Universe was written by Martin Gardner, one of Dover''s most popular authors,.

Martin Gardner''s Mathematical Games columns in Scientific American inspired and entertained several generations of mathematicians and scientists. Gardner in his crystal-clear prose illuminated corners of mathematics, especially recreational mathematics, that most people had no idea existed. His playful spirit and inquisitive nature invite the reader into an exploration of beautiful mathematical ideas along with him. These columns were both a revelation and a gift when he wrote them; no one--before Gardner--had written about mathematics like this. They continue to be a marvel. This is the original 1992 edition and contains columns published from 1978-1979.

A collection of brain teasers and mathematical puzzles from the pages of Scientific American. Annotation. These clearly and cleverly presented mathematical recreations of paradoxes and paperfolding, Moebius variations and mnemonics both ancient and modern delight and perplex while demonstrating principles of logic, probability, geometry, and other mathematical fields. Martin Gardner has turned a trick as neat as any in the book itself. He has selected a group of diversions which are not only entertaining but mathematically meaningful as well. The result is a work which is rewarding on almost every level of mathematical achievement.

A prominent popular science writer presents simple instructions for 100 illustrated experiments. Memorable, easily understood experiments illuminate principles related to astronomy, chemistry, physiology, psychology, mathematics, topology, probability, acoustics, other areas.

Contains puzzles that first baffle and then delight problem solving addicts. Grew out of a collaboration between Bob Tappay and Martin Gardner to enliven the learning of mathematics.

Martin Gardner''s Mathematical Games columns in Scientific American inspired and entertained several generations of mathematicians and scientists. Gardner in his crystal-clear prose illuminated corners of mathematics, especially recreational mathematics, that most people had no idea existed. His playful spirit and inquisitive nature invite the reader into an exploration of beautiful mathematical ideas along with him. These columns were both a revelation and a gift when he wrote them; no one--before Gardner--had written about mathematics like this. They continue to be a marvel. This is the original 1988 edition and contains columns published from 1974-1976.

Martin Gardner''s Mathematical Games columns in Scientific American inspired and entertained several generations of mathematicians and scientists. Gardner in his crystal-clear prose illuminated corners of mathematics, especially recreational mathematics, that most people had no idea existed. His playful spirit and inquisitive nature invite the reader into an exploration of beautiful mathematical ideas along with him. These columns were both a revelation and a gift when he wrote them; no one--before Gardner--had written about mathematics like this. They continue to be a marvel. This is the original 1986 edition and contains columns published from 1972-1974.

A collection of tricks, stunts, and puzzles that explore the properties of water, air, friction, heat, motion, light, and more.

A collection of tricks, stunts, and puzzles that explore the properties of water, air, friction, heat, motion, light, and more.

At a time when popular knowledge of basic science has sunk to a new low and books promoting angels, parapsychology, and bizarre forms of medicine and healing outnumber skeptical books by more than a thousand to one, Americans need a voice of sanity. Weird Water and Fuzzy Logic introduces readers to mind-wrenching probability paradoxes, recent attacks on the Big Bang Theory, and Marianne Williamson''s success promoting The Course of Miracles, which is said to have been channeled by Jesus. Other columns address E-prime, a language that omits all forms of the verb "to be"; Norman Vincent Peale''s beliefs in the paranormal; repressed memory therapy; science blunders by famous writers; the influence of Transcendental Meditation on the career of Doug Henning; a critique of "Klingon" and other artificial languages; and much more.

Martin Gardner is widely known for his writing on recreational mathematics, not least for the myriad problems he has devised over some 25 years for Scientific American. In this book are 36 of his best brainteasers. These are not simply cunning puzzles, but serve to illustrate the art of the mathematician as problem solver, and their solution draws on ideas from topology, probability, number theory, logic and beyond. Fully worked answers are given, which, in turn, lead to additional problems for the reader. For anybody who likes to solve mathematical problems, this book will be both entertaining and a challenge.

This delightful collection from the magician of math introduces readers to magic squares, the Generalized Ham Sandwich Theorem, origami, digital roots, an update of the Induction Game of Eleusis, Dudeney puzzles, the maze at Hampton Court palace, and many more mathematical puzzles and principles. "Gardner is often the clown prince of science. . . . His Mathematical Games column in Scientific American is one of the few bridges over C. P. Snow''s famous ''gulf of mutual incomprehension'' that lies between the technical and literary cultures."-Time

This text contains 54 of Martin Gardner''s most searching and challenging essays, spanning nearly six decades. Issues tackled range from the apparent inexplicability of quantum physics to the eternal question of the existence of God, and an array of subjects are covered, from philosophy, the arts and religion, to mathematics and science.