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Game, Set and Math: Enigmas and Conundrums (Dover Classics of Science & Mathematics)

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Like the man who replaced Babe Ruth in the Yankee outfield, Ian Stewart is replacing a legend. When Martin Gardner "retired" as the editor of the Mathematical Games column of Scientific American it was eventually taken over by A. K. Dewdney and became Computer Recreations. Now written by Ian Stewart and called Mathematical Recreations, it is proving a worthy successor to the master. This book is a collection of twelve essays that explain serious mathematics using an unserious approach.
Set in a format that is best described as a chatty fable with puns included, the essays are certainly easy to read. However, as is usual with material containing a lot of puns, they do at times distract from the point of the essay. And those points are very good. The topology of a warm blanket, the odds of beating a tennis player that is better than you, logic and the construction of viruses are some of the topics covered in this book. All are presented as mathematical recreations with a minimum of computer involvement.
No one could possibly replace Martin Gardner. The best that can be done is to carve a successful, distinctive niche, which is what Ian Stewart has done.

Published in Journal of Recreational Mathematics, reprinted with permission.

The book is a set of puzzles for the reader to solve, often involving a family of worms that have to split a blanket, cut a cheese, or some other commonplace task that nonetheless can take mathematics to solve in the required way. The author originally wrote the puzzles for the French edition of Scientific American. Some of the mathematics involved is the standard (but interesting) pop-math like games with infinity, but others get into topology and higher mathematics. While many of the puzzles are quite interesting, a few will lose the casual reader (even the well-informed casual reader.) Nevertheless, the pleasure of sticking it out for the good ones repays the pain.