The Colossal Book of Mathematics: Classic Puzzles, Paradoxes, and Problems

This weighty collection, containing 50 of what the Annotated Alice annotator and popular science journalist considers his best Scientific American "Mathematical Games" columns, is sure to please the relatively small but intensely loyal coterie of Gardner fans. Arranged in 12 broad categories (arithmetic and algebra, plane geometry, topology, infinity, etc.), these pieces cover subjects that will delight recreational math buffs, such as Penrose tiles, hypercubes, Klein bottles and fractal music.

What can a fingernail tell us about the mysteries of creation? In one sense, a nail is merely a hunk of mute matter, yet in another, it’s an information superhighway quite literally at our fingertips. Every moment, streams of molecular signals direct our cells to move, flatten, swell, shrink, divide, or die. Andreas Wagner’s ambitious new book explores this hidden web of unimaginably complex interactions in every living being. In the process, he unveils a host of paradoxes underpinning our understanding of modern biology, contradictions he considers gatekeepers at the frontiers of knowledge.

Satan, Cantor, And Infinity and Other Mind-Boggling Puzzles

The author of What Is the Name of This Book? presents a compilation of more than two hundred challenging new logic puzzles--ranging from simple brainteasers to complex mathematical paradoxes.

In this book of puzzles and paradoxes, Peter Cave introduces some of life's most important questions with tales and tall stories, reasons and arguments, common sense and bizarre conclusions. From how to get to heaven, to speedy tortoises, paradoxes and puzzles give rise to some of the most exciting philosophical problems. Illustrated with quirky cartoons throughout, The Unusual, Please! takes the reader on a tour to the most interesting and delightful parts of philosophy.