The Moscow Puzzles: 359 Mathematical Recreations

Excellent collection of math puzzles not requiring advanced math - A book for anyone and everyone With and outstanding collection of 359 mathematical recreations and being lavishly illustrated with more than 400 diagrams and sketches, this book will certainly become a treasure in the personal library of anyone that enjoys solving puzzles. It's a mammoth puzzle collection, compare with most math teasers and puzzles book available. But what is important is not the quantity, but the quality and charm of the problems presented. The book is divided in fifteen chapters, as shown: - Amusing problems. - Difficult problems. - Geometry with matches. - Measure seven times before you cut. - Skill will find its application everywhere. - Dominoes and dice. - Properties of nine. - With algebra and without it. - Mathematics with almost no calculations. - Mathematical games and tricks. - Divisibility. - Cross sums and magic squares. - Numbers curious and serious. - Numbers ancient but eternally young. - Solutions. Everyone will find the type of problems the like most. Often the puzzles are presented in the form of charming stories that provides valuable insights into contemporary Russian life and customs.

I was thrilled and surprised to see that this book is still in print. I loved puzzles as a child and spent many hours for fun working the problems in this book (which may have paved the way for my PhD in Computer Science). I fished out my old copy recently to show my 11 year old daughter how I spent my spare hours as a child - *not* playing computer games of dubious educational value. I am sure that working the problems in this book helped increase my problem solving skills - in a different and more general way than I was learning in school. Of all the puzzle books and puzzles I ever owned, this is the only one I saved. The book has a wide variety of types of puzzles (not all involve numbers). While some are easy, most were challenging. The descriptions were charming, with Russian names of children and towns and quaint puzzle descriptions involving wells, or steam engines or household objects. All in all, a delightful, very educational puzzle collection.

I greatly enjoy mathematical puzzles and brain teasers and regularly look for good puzzle books out there. I picked this one up about 10 years ago, and it's still one of the best I've ever encountered. Many of the problems are short and concise, but provide great challenges. A great learning tool as well as a nice diversion for many ages.

"The Moscow Puzzles" is unique among problem-solving and brainteaser books because of the wide range of types of problems that it addresses. As a lecturer at Cal Tech's Executive Training Center, I teach "Creating Breakthrough Products" to technical executives. This book has been very helpful for those participating, because the problems it contains represent various types of psychological barriers that prevent problem-solvers and designers from achieving high-level solutions. I refer to examples from this book during the Cal Tech training session; we employ the revolutionary Russian problem-solving tool whose acronym is "TRIZ."Other fine attributes of this book are its sense of humor and its practicality. The author has chosen everyday events and situations for his problem "plots," and in doing so, maintains the interest level of the average reader.Readers of this book will learn to overcome personal barriers to creativity (the chief personal barrier is called "psychological inertia"), and will increase their creativity quotients by an order of magnitude, or more.I strongly recommend this book for use in all classes from grades 4 through college senior. For the rest of us who simply like ("love") to work on challenging problems, this is the book for you. Good luck!

As a 7th grade math teacher, I use problems from this book to supplement my gifted pre-algebra classes, and to provide a challenge to my math teams. Superb book.