The Mathematics of Various Entertaining Subjects

The editors once again have brought together an extraordinary list of authors to produce nineteen engaging papers, split into five groups: puzzles and brainteasers, geometry and topology, graph theory, games of chance, and computational complexity. . . . It is often deeply challenging mathematically and, as a result, all the more fun. Each reader will find chapters that appeal to them.--MAA Reviews In the second volume of this engaging series, Beineke . . . and Rosenhouse . . . deliver another fantastic collection of essays dealing with popular mathematics. . . . Anyone who enjoys reading about recreational mathematics will find plenty to enjoy and discover in this second volume.--Choice As enticing as a Rubik's Cube, this rigorous and inviting book is a treat to the eyes and mind. The list of contributors is an all-star lineup ready to welcome you into their mathematical rec rooms. Pull up a chair and grab a friend, it's time to be entertained with various mathematical subjects. --Tim Chartier, author of Math Bytes: Google Bombs, Chocolate-Covered Pi, and Other Cool Bits in Computing The fascinating essays in this collection are written by top scholars who employ diverse mathematical and computational techniques to find surprising answers to intriguing questions. With a nice balance of context and background information, new results, and surveys of known and related results, this book will be useful to a wide array of mathematicians and readers interested in recreational mathematics. --David Richeson, author of Euler's Gem: The Polyhedron Formula and the Birth of Topology Recreational math is an important branch of mathematics. The contributions in The Mathematics of Various Entertaining Subjects are of a very high quality and almost all contain new results. --Anany Levitin, coauthor of Algorithmic Puzzles Every essay in this collection can be appreciated by math enthusiasts of all levels, from high school students to research mathematicians. With work from leading mathematicians such as John Conway, Richard Guy, Bob Bosch, Peter Winkler, Tanya Khovanova, and Erik Demaine, what's not to love? --Arthur Benjamin, author of The Magic of Math: Solving for x and Figuring out Why [This book] is beautiful in that just about every problem could be explained to anybody with almost no mathematics background at all, but the methods of solving them take you deeply into many complex areas of mathematics. The books gathers together problems which pop up through what one might consider 'silly' or 'frivolous' questions, but which lead to new ways of thinking and have applications in enormously wide-ranging areas of mathematics.---Jonathan Shock, Mathemafrica