Includes bibliographical references and index.

Part I. Puzzles and brainteasers. The cyclic prisoners / Peter Winkler ; Dragons and Kasha / Tanya Khovanova ; The history and future of logic puzzles / Jason Rosenhouse ; The tower of Hanoi for humans / Paul K. Stockmeyer ; Frenicle's 880 magic squares / John Conway, Simon Norton, and Alex Ryba -- Part II. Geometry and topology. A triangle has eight vertices but only one center / Richard K. Guy ; Enumeration of solutions to Gardner's paper cutting and folding problem / Jill Bigley Dunham and Gwyneth R. Whieldon ; The color cubes puzzle with two and three colors / Ethan Berkove, David Cervantes-Nava, Daniel Condon, Andrew Eickemeyer, Rachel Katz, and Michael J. Schulman ; Tangled tangles / Erik D. Demaine, Martin L. Demaine, Adam Hesterberg, Quanauan Liu, Ron Taylor, and Ryuhei Uehara -- Part III. Graph theory. Making walks count : from silent circles to Hamiltonian cycles / Max A. Alekseyev and G�erard P. Michon ; Duels, truels, gruels, and survival of the unfittest / Dominic Lanphier ; Trees, trees, so many trees / Allen J. Schwenk ; Crossing numbers of complete graphs / Noam D. Elkies -- Part IV. Games of chance. Numerically balanced dice / Robert Bosch, Robert Fathauer, and Henry Segerman ; A TROUBLE-some simulation / Geoffrey D. Dietz ; A sequence game on a Roulette wheel / Robert W. Vallin -- Part V. Computational complexity. Multinational war is hard / Jonathan Ward ; Clickomania is hard, even with two colors and columns / Aviv Adler, Erik D. Demaine, Adam Hesterberg, Quanquan Liu, and MIkhail Rudoy ; Computational complexity of arranging music / Erik D. Demaine and William S. Moses.

The history of mathematics is filled with major breakthroughs resulting from solutions to recreational problems. Problems of interest to gamblers led to the modern theory of probability, for example, and surreal numbers were inspired by the game of Go. Yet even with such groundbreaking findings and a wealth of popular-level books, research in recreational mathematics has often been neglected. This book returns with a brand-new compilation of fascinating problems and solutions in recreational mathematics. It gathers together the top experts in recreational math and presents a compelling look at board games, card games, dice, toys, computer games, and much more. The book is divided into five parts: puzzles and brainteasers, geometry and topology, graph theory, games of chance, and computational complexity. Readers will discover what origami, roulette wheels, and even the game of Trouble can teach about math. Chapters contain new results, and include short expositions on the topic's background, providing a framework for understanding the relationship between serious mathematics and recreational games. Mathematical areas explored include combinatorics, logic, graph theory, linear algebra, geometry, topology, computer science, operations research, probability, game theory, and music theory.

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