# You're reading: Posts Tagged: Puzzles

### Review: Who’s Counting, by John Allen Paulos

We asked guest author Elliott Baxby to take a look at John Allen Paulos’ latest book, Who’s Counting.

Mathematics is an increasingly complex subject, and we are often taught it in an abstract manner. John Allen Paulos delves into the hidden mathematics within everyday life, and illustrates how it permeates everything from politics to pop culture – for example, how game show hosts use mathematics for puzzles like the classic Monty Hall problem.

The book is a collection of essays from Paulos’ ABC News column together with some original new content written for the book, on a huge range of topics from card shuffling and the butterfly effect to error correcting codes and COVID, and even the Bible code. As it’s a collection of separate columns, it doesn’t always flow fluently – I did find myself losing focus on some of the topics covered, particularly ones that didn’t interest me as much. This was mainly down to the content though – the writing style is extremely accessible and at times witty.

The book included some interesting puzzles and questions, which were challenging and engaging, and included solutions to each problem – very helpful for a Saturday night maths challenge! I even showed some to my friends, who at times were truly puzzled. I loved the idea of puzzles being a means of sneaking cleverly designed mathematical problems onto TV game shows. It goes to show maths is everywhere!

I enjoyed the sections on probability and logic as these are topics I’m particularly interested in. One chapter also explored the constant $e$, where it came from and where else it pops up – a very interesting read. It does deserve more attention, as π seems to be the main mathematical constant you hear about, and I appreciated seeing $e$ being explored in more depth.

This book would suit anyone who seeks to see a different side of mathematics – which we aren’t often taught in school – and how it manifests itself in politics and the world around us. That said, it would be better for someone with an A-level mathematics background, as some of the topics could be challenging for a less experienced reader.

It’s mostly enjoyable and has a good depth of knowledge, including questions to test your mind. While I didn’t find all of it completely engaging, there are definitely some points made in the book that I’ll refer back to in the future!

### Blockbusters of Interesting Maths

As part of the 24 Hour Maths Game Show which took place at the end of October 2022, our own Christian Lawson-Perfect designed a maths/games crossover gameshow format to end them all – a mashup of hexagon-fighting TV quiz Blockbusters, and his own personal obsession: interesting mathematical factoids. Welcome to Blockbusters of Interesting Maths!

### Some Puzzles I Made For My Students

This semester I’ve been teaching a module that covers a couple of different maths topics, and have been setting little puzzles for my students to complement what they’re learning – and some of them have been quite fun to write and play with. I thought I’d share some of them here, so you can enjoy them too.

### A Mathematician’s Guide to Wordle

We invited mathematician and wordplay fan Ali Lloyd to share his thoughts on hit internet word game phenomenon Wordle. If you’re not familiar with the game, we recommend you go and have a play first.

When I first saw Wordle I said what I saw many other people subsequently say: “Oh, so it’s a bit like Mastermind but with words? That’s a neat idea”.

### Mathematical Objects: Arbelos with Catriona Agg

A conversation about mathematics inspired by an arbelos. Presented by Katie Steckles and Peter Rowlett, with special guest Catriona Agg.

Catriona mentions this proof without words, which is taken from Proof Without Words: The Area of an Arbelos by Roger B. Nelsen in Mathematics Magazine.

### Equatum puzzles – a chat with Justin Roughley

Equatum is a new puzzle format invented by mathematician Justin Roughley, and is now available in the form of a book. We chatted to Justin about his life and his puzzles.

### Alex Bellos – The Language Lover’s Puzzle Book

If you’re a fan of maths (which we assume you are, if you’re reading a maths blog), you might be familiar with Alex Bellos from his excellent popular maths books, including Alex’s Adventures in Numberland and the follow-up Alex Through The Looking Glass; you might also enjoy his more recent forays into puzzle books, including Can You Solve My Problems, and Japanese logic puzzle collection Puzzle Ninja, as well as his regular Monday puzzle column in The Guardian.

For his latest book, The Language Lover’s Puzzle Book, Alex has focused on language puzzles, largely drawn from the linguistic equivalent of Maths Olympiads (which he’s gotten really into lately). It’s a hefty volume split into cleverly collected sections on different aspects of language – including how languages are constructed, how words are pronounced, and as you might expect, the origins of how language is used to communicate numbers.