Puzzles
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16 fun applications of the pigeonhole principle
[This article is included in the 45th Carnival of Math ] Mathematical logic can produce some great trivia. Did you know that at every instant, there is a spot in the world where no wind is blowing? It is true, and the proof comes as an application of a fixed point theorem which I discussed a year ago. This article continues the Thanksgiving tradition of discussing math trivia.
A fun card puzzle
I came across a good brain teaser at this site : A pack of cards has 52 cards. You are in a dark room with this pack of cards. You have been told that inside the pack there are 42 cards facing down, 10 cards facing up. You have been asked to reorganize this pack of cards into two decks – so that each deck contains an equal number of cards that face up. Remember, you are in the darkness and can’t see.
Spot the math errors!
Via StumbleUpon, I came across this short text page which lists three mathematical ‘proofs’ which seem to violate common sense, listed below. The first is: The second one is:8 really fun paper and pencil Math games » Fun Math Blog
Games and Math go really well together, although a lot of people don't make that connection. Math really can be fun if some of its principles are taught through games. We see this in quite a number of free and commercial video games that teach math concepts, typically through solving arithmetic problems. In this article I present 8 games of a different variety. They use paper and pencil, are free, are easy to learn, and teach logical thinking and strategy that involves looking ahead. They're great fun and they can usually be played by young and old alike.
These problems are aimed at junior high and high school students with a flare for mathematics and logic. These are "real world" problems, rather than abstract riddles about sets or trigonometry etc. The questions should be accessible to a wide audience, even if the answers are not.
