Customer Reviews

Impossible?: Surprising Solutions to Counterintuitive Conundrums

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

i warn the potential purchaser that this may not be quite what you expect. There is a demand for substantial mathematical sophistication - which was a little beyond my level (i do have a doctorate, but not in math, and had to stop taking math courses after my sophomore year in college because matrix algebra was about all i could handle). i don't doubt that the book is delightful for those strong in math and i probably would give it 5 stars except that the title strikes me as a bit misleading. probably your average college graduate would not know enough to find these conundrums counterintuitive, and the solutions, likewise, are probably not much more surprising than that the conundrums are supposedly common-sensical. not a criticism of the material, more of the packaging.

james h waters phd

As expected from this author, the topics are well chosen and the counter-intuitive results intriguing.
However,contrary to my experience with Havil's earlier books, "Impossible" seems to reflect hasty preparation and/or careless editing, hence the lower rating. An earlier review referred to the error in the proof of the irrationality of log2. To this can be added a number of others. For example: wrong signs in the Taylor expansions of sinx and cosx (p.226);numerous P(n-k,k)instead of P(n-k-1)in the coin toss discussion (p.97); log n - 2/3 instead of log n -3/2 (p.101);over-counting by a factor 3! in the mathematical expression for the number of ways of picking one pair(not two pairs as stated)in a poker hand, and the omission of -40 and -1098240 in the last line of the odd card discussion (p.106). While It should be emphasized that this is not a book for the casual reader,even the reader with some measure of mathematical sophistication will be frustrated by such errors and misprints;certainly, an unnecessary impediment to what could be a enjoyable journey for one seriously interested in mathematical conundrums.

I am a mathematician, so my opinion is probably biased. This is the kind
of popular book on mathematics that would have appealed to me in my young age
and seems still very enjoyable and instructive (I have only skimmed it so far).
The main reason for my review is that, the book not giving an email address for the
author, this place seemed the easiest one to point out a computation error
that invalidates the proof of irrationality of log 2 in the appendix.
The correct computation will lead to a correct proof, but a different one, which
as expected, must use the uniqueness of prime factorization.

fun book. well written, well organized, interesting selection of topics. if you enjoy recreational mathematics and logic puzzles, buy and enjoy.