“A brilliant collection of puzzles. Never has getting the answer wrong felt so good!”—G. T. Karber, author of Murdle Most people get these puzzles wrong. Will you beat the odds? From mathy mind-benders to eye-fooling illusions, here are 70 perplexing puzzles of every kind. But they all have one key thing in common—a wrong answer that seems so right! In Puzzle Me Twice, you’ll have to think—and think again—to overrule your first instinct and uncover the truth. For example: If a hen and a half lays an egg and a half in a day and a half, how many eggs do half a dozen hens lay in half a dozen days?* Bestselling author Alex Bellos wrangles math and physics, logic and wordplay, optical illusions, card games, and more to tie readers’ brains in pleasurable knots. It’s a merry tour of the many ways our reasoning can go wrong—and how we can be more fool-proof in the future. Puzzle on! *Four times as many hens, over four times as many days, lay 16 times as many eggs: 1.5 × 16 = 24 eggs.

A high-class puzzle book from the bestselling author of Alex's Adventures in Numberland; organised from easy-peasy to ninja level - with stories of puzzle mysteries, histories and scandals along the way this book will make your hippocampus happy.

Too often math gets a bad rap, characterized as dry and difficult. But, Alex Bellos says, "math can be inspiring and brilliantly creative. Mathematical thought is one of the great achievements of the human race, and arguably the foundation of all human progress. The world of mathematics is a remarkable place." Bellos has traveled all around the globe and has plunged into history to uncover fascinating stories of mathematical achievement, from the breakthroughs of Euclid, the greatest mathematician of all time, to the creations of the Zen master of origami, one of the hottest areas of mathematical work today. Taking us into the wilds of the Amazon, he tells the story of a tribe there who can count only to five and reports on the latest findings about the math instinct—including the revelation that ants can actually count how many steps they’ve taken. Journeying to the Bay of Bengal, he interviews a Hindu sage about the brilliant mathematical insights of the Buddha, while in Japan he visits the godfather of Sudoku and introduces the brainteasing delights of mathematical games. Exploring the mysteries of randomness, he explains why it is impossible for our iPods to truly randomly select songs. In probing the many intrigues of that most beloved of numbers, pi, he visits with two brothers so obsessed with the elusive number that they built a supercomputer in their Manhattan apartment to study it. Throughout, the journey is enhanced with a wealth of intriguing illustrations, such as of the clever puzzles known as tangrams and the crochet creation of an American math professor who suddenly realized one day that she could knit a representation of higher dimensional space that no one had been able to visualize. Whether writing about how algebra solved Swedish traffic problems, visiting the Mental Calculation World Cup to disclose the secrets of lightning calculation, or exploring the links between pineapples and beautiful teeth, Bellos is a wonderfully engaging guide who never fails to delight even as he edifies. Here’s Looking at Euclid is a rare gem that brings the beauty of math to life.

100 wonder-filled word puzzles that thrill and tantalize with the beauty, magic, and weirdness of world language Whether you’re a crossword solver, cryptogram fan, Scrabble addict, or Sudoku savant, The Language Lover’s Puzzle Book is guaranteed to tease your brain and twist your tongue. Puzzle master Alex Bellos begins in Japan, where we can observe some curious counting: boru niko = two balls tsuna nihon = two ropes uma nito = two horses kami nimai = two sheets of paper ashi gohon = five legs ringo goko = five apples sara gomai = five plates kaba goto = five hippos Now, how do the Japanese say “nine cucumbers”?* a) kyuri kyuhon b) kyuri kyuko c) kyuri kyuhiki d) kyuri kyuto Bellos finds the intrigue—and the human element—in a dizzying array of ancient, modern, and even invented tongues, from hieroglyphs to Blissymbolics, Danish to Dothraki. Filled with unusual alphabets, fascinating characters, and intriguing local customs for time-telling, naming children, and more, this is a bravura book of brainteasers and beyond—it’s a globe-trotting, time-traveling celebration of language. *The word endings depend on shape: Flat things end in -mai and spherical things end in -ko. Cucumbers are long things (like ropes and legs), so they end in -hon. The answer is (a)!

Peek “behind the scenes” of the universe—and see math in brilliant color! For curious minds throughout history, math was truly an art. In Visions of the Universe, you can pick up right where Isaac Newton, Blaise Pascal, and other luminaries left off—by coloring 58 exquisite patterns inspired by great discoveries in math: Intricate geometric designs like those that grace the mosques of Mecca Felix Klein’s astounding diagram—drawn in 1897—of light reflecting between five mirrored spheres A mind-bending puzzle so beautiful it once hung outside a Japanese temple, and more! Plus, in the Creating chapter, you’ll help complete 10 additional images by following simple steps that give spectacular results. No math knowledge is required: Anyone can be an artist in Numberland!

"A coloring book that reveals math's hidden beauty and contemplative power as never before with 78 coloring designs and games that explore symmetry, fractals, tessellations, randomness, and more."--

Thought you had it bad? In this book, you will be: Imprisoned by a sadistic logician. Challenged to raise dogs from the dead. Trapped on a burning island. And much more besides . . . Everything is at stake in this compendium of more than 150 ingenious puzzles, selected to reveal the wonderful diversity of brainteasers that have confounded and intrigued solvers for the last thousand years. You'll need to pit your wits against probability problems, wrestle with wordplay, grapple with geometry and scrabble for survival. Along the way you will discover stories of whip-smart thinkers, eccentric novelists and a poodle with allegedly supernatural powers. You will absorb fascinating and important mathematical ideas. Some solutions will rely on ingenuity, some will challenge you to spot hidden patterns, others call for extreme rationality. All will surprise, entertain and stretch your brain. Will you make it out with your puzzling pride intact?