The Puzzles to be Solved

Ghad! I‘m so glad that this will be the last book I’ll write a review about. At least, the last book is somehow interesting and enjoyable. The book is entitled Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities which is all about mathematical games, puzzles and all other mathematical tricks. Those that were mentioned are the things he call curiosities. The author, Stewart, discusses the history of mathematical things in a way that the readers can understand what he wants to relay.

The book does not tell a story with mathematics in it unlike the A Certain Ambiguity and it also doesn't explain some mathematical game theories unlike the Rock, Paper, Scissors. It is just a book wherein puzzles, games, jokes and tricks are collected (but especially, math is still related to them). You don’t need to have a large knowledge about some math branches like statistics and calculus to understand the book. It is just about analysis and logic. I enjoyed the book even if I didn't answer all the given puzzles.

The book revolves about mathematical logic, geometry, probability and plain Jane arithmetic. He also mentions facts like why anything cannot be divided by zero, the seven bridges of Konigsberg (the one that you must find a path that can pass all the bridges only once) and the sausage conjecture (where how efficiently can circles or spheres be wrapped).

The thing that really made me happy was the “Make Me a Pentagon” in which he asks his readers to make a pentagon from a strip. Well, I already knew this one because I once loved making paper stars and the very first step in making them is to make a pentagon. Then there was it! I just felt so proud about myself (haha). For those who didn’t know how to make it, logical thinking and analysis are a requirement.

Another cool thing was the Extracting the Cherry where only 2 sticks are allowed to move when extracting the cherry from the glass that was made of 4 sticks. This was just exactly the same as the one that I knew. It only has different subjects wherein the cherry turns to be a poop (haha disgusting) and the glass turns to be a dust pan. This trick, I think, was the very first trick I’ve ever known in my life.

Next was the Empty Glasses wherein 5 glasses having 3 full glasses first and 2 empty in the last will be arranged in an alternate manner (full-empty-full-empty-full) in which only one glass is allowed to move. I admit that I really didn’t know how to solve this one because I was kind of dependent on my previous favorite tricks in which I knew how to solve them already. This was very tricky but when I found out the answer, it was just very simple and it just requires your common sense. Nah, it makes me slap my face (haha).

Actually, I haven’t finished reading the book because there’s no more time to do it. This book review is needed to be passed today even if we were given months to read this but I really can’t handle both the studying and the book reading. I want to finish this since summer starts now. This book is really interesting and fun. I could share the tricks I’ve learned to other people. It makes you realize that analysis is really very important. Some tricks and puzzles were fun though but I only mentioned those that were really cool for me. I want to congratulate the author for making such an amazing book.

And this is how I end my last book review :) thank you!