New MAA Book: Hexaflexagons, Probability Paradoxes, and the Tower of Hanoi

Hexaflexagons, Probability Paradoxes, and the Tower of Hanoi: Martin Gardner's First Book of Mathematical Puzzles and Games
Martin Gardner
208 pp., paperbound, 2008. Series: The New Martin Gardner Mathematical Library (No. 1)
ISBN: 978-0-521-73525-4
 
Hexaflexagons, Probability Paradoxes, and the Tower of Hanoi is the inaugural volume in The New Martin Gardner Mathematical Library. Challenging and fascinating, it contains the earliest of Martin Gardner's popular Scientific American columns and puzzles. The author, in consultation with experts, has revised and updated all the original chapters, adding new game variations, mathematical proofs, and other developments and discoveries.

The book features accounts of paradoxes and logical fallacies, magic squares, paper-folding, Möbius-strip variants, topological curiosities, parlor tricks, and games ancient and modern, from polyominoes, Nim, Hex, and the Tower of Hanoi to four-dimensional ticktacktoe. These mathematical recreations, clearly and cleverly presented, delight and perplex while demonstrating principles of logic, probability, geometry, and other fields of mathematics.

Contents:
1. Hexaflexagons; 2. Magic with a Matrix; 3. Nine Problems; 4. Ticktacktoe; 5. Probability Paradoxes; 6. The Icosian Game and the Tower of Hanoi; 7. Curious Topological Models; 8. The Game of Hex; 9. Sam Loyd: America's Greatest Puzzlist; 10. Mathematical Card Tricks; 11. Memorizing Numbers; 12. Nine More Problems; 13. Polyominoes; 14. Fallacies; 15. Nim and Tac Tix; 16. Left or Right?

Reviews:
"Martin Gardner's fifteen volumes about Mathematical Games are The Canon—timeless classics that are always worth reading and rereading."—Don Knuth

"An orgy of right-brain tomfoolery that could be approached for superficial fun or deep insight, or both at the same time."—David Brooks, The Telegraph

About The New Martin Gardner Mathematical Library:
Martin Gardner's "Mathematical Games" columns in Scientific American linked the world of professional mathematicians with that of recreational mathematics. Gardner's columns broke stories about knot theory, fractals, and Penrose tilings, among may other mathematical and scientific subjects. This series brings all his original books together for the first time, in revised and expanded editions for the twenty-first century.

Editorial Board: Donald J. Albers, Gerald L. Alexanderson, John H. Conway, Richard K. Guy, Harold R. Jacobs, Donald E. Knuth, and Peter L. Renz.

Order Hexaflexagons, Probability Paradoxes, and the Tower of Hanoi from the MAA Bookstore.
List: $14.99