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The Simple Book of Not-So-Simple Puzzles

Serhiy Grabarchuk, Peter Grabarchuk, and Serhiy Grabarchuk, Jr.
Publisher: 
A K Peters
Publication Date: 
2008
Number of Pages: 
105
Format: 
Paperback
Price: 
19.95
ISBN: 
9781568814186
Category: 
General
[Reviewed by
Tom Schulte
, on
07/8/2008
]

This work, written by a father and sons, is an array of clever and difficult puzzles. The puzzles are of a small but interesting variety. All have a pictorial representation and are, basically, about rearranging (coins or matchsticks), counting (a minority classification here), or subdividing spaces.

These puzzles do not always lend themselves to mathematical application. For instance, recognizing the distorted letters “SUN CITY” in an image is more likely to be solved by a Gestalt flash of insight rather than using the techniques from “Breaking the Holiday Inn Priority Club: CAPTCHA”(College Mathematics Journal, March 2005). Of course, some could have combinatorial or geometric or other logic applied, but often this is a stretch and is not the direction the puzzle makers intend here.

The collection of over one hundred puzzles will spark out of the box thinking and lead to  “aha!” moments that even Martin Gardner would appreciate. The easily described puzzles fit mostly two to a page and every one is solved in detail in the back of the book.


Tom Schulte (http://www.oakland.edu/~tgschult/) puzzles over Constraint Programming in the Industrial Applied Mathematics graduate program at Oakland University (http://www.oakland.edu) and enjoys chess and music.

The table of contents is not available.