Which Way Did the Bicycle Go?: And Other Intriguing Mathematical Mysteries by Joseph D.E. Konhauser


Which Way Did the Bicycle Go?: And Other Intriguing Mathematical Mysteries
Title : Which Way Did the Bicycle Go?: And Other Intriguing Mathematical Mysteries
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 0883853256
ISBN-10 : 9780883853252
Language : English
Format Type : Paperback
Number of Pages : 253
Publication : First published October 1, 1996

This book contains the best problems selected from over 25 years of the Problem of the Week at Macalester College. This collection will give students, teachers, and university professors a chance to experience the pleasure of wrestling with some beautiful problems of elementary mathematics. Readers can compare their sleuthing talents with those of Sherlock Holmes, who made a bad mistake regarding the first problem in the collection: Determine the direction of travel of a bicycle that has left its tracks in a patch of mud. The collection contains a variety of other unusual and interesting problems in geometry, algebra, combinatorics, and number theory. For example, if a pizza is sliced into eight 45-degree wedges meeting at a point other than the center of the pizza, and two people eat alternating wedges, will they get equal amounts of pizza? Or: Is an advertiser's claim that a certain unusual combination lock allows thousands of combinations justified? Complete solutions to the 191 problems are included with problem variations and topics for investigation.

Which Way Did the Bicycle Go?: And Other Intriguing Mathematical Mysteries Reviews

  • Charles

    Starting with tire tracks in the mud, this book engages the reader with many adventures in mathematical explorations. Selected from the Problem of the Week collection at Macalester College that spans over twenty-five years, these 191 pearls are truly special. With an undergraduate population as the target, all problems can be understood by the sophisticated mathematics student. Most are within the proof set of undergraduates, although everyone from student to professor will find them challenging.
    The subject matter is generally restricted to topics that are encountered in high school. For example, calculus is essentially unused. The main categories are: plane geometry, number theory, algebra, combinatorics, and graph theory, and three-dimensional geometry. A chapter of miscellaneous problems rounds out the collection. Solutions to all problems are included and the authors took great care to choose the proof that was most elegant or unusual.
    If you are looking for that special problem to challenge your students or have an urge to be intrigued, then you should find what you want in this book.

    Published in Journal of Recreational Mathematics, reprinted with permission and this review appears on Amazon.