Customer Reviews

The Riddle of Scheherazade: And Other Amazing Puzzles

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

 

 

This is probably the best book on logic puzzles ever written (aside from other Smullyan books, that is). It is witty, challenging, and has problems of all kinds. The first half is framed as a continuation to the Arabian Nights, with ingenious and original puzzles (aside from the occasional oldy snuck in) given an Arabian touch.
However, after those brilliant puzzles comes the greatest part of the book. The second half is a collection of puzzles, paradoxes, and even has a couple of chapters on coercive logic, invented by Raymond Smullyan himself.
I reccomend this book to any logic buff, or indeed to anyone who's ever enjoyed a logic puzzle. And if you don't fall into either category, then you need this book all the more.

This book is a cleaverly crafted web of logic problems with thier corresponding solutions. It begins with simple riddles and math problems then quickly leads you to deeper and more facinating problems. These puzzles are arranged in a wonderful narrative with the problems getting increasing complex. Depending on your level of interest, some of the more complex puzzles can easliy go over your head if you let them. The book is definately a lot of fun for math and logic buffs that enjoy being entertained and challenged.

Seeing my frustration at being thoroughly unchallenged in logic in my math class at school, my mom bought me this book. I owe her one. There are coercive logic puzzles, easy but sneaky riddles, and math games. There are liar/truthteller problems to keep you guessing for hours. That said, this is also a great book to read on a plane. It is so complete, you will never need another brainteaser book. That is, until you memorize all the questions.

Another challenging set of puzzles from one of our most inventive minds. The book not only has a range of great puzzles, and introduces 'coercive logic' puzzles, but is fun to read as well.

The use of the Scheherazade tale as a backdrop is clever and fun. As usual Smullyan gets us to a deeper understanding of logical theory, while we think we're just playing games!

This book is a good source of riddles, old and new. Unfortunately, a lot of the riddles are just basic algebra problems... and that's not very fun. But if you skip (or quickly work out) the silly algebra riddles, there are still a lot of other interesting riddles. And also there's a neat way to prove Gauss's summing rule in this book.

Also, I was looking for an errata for this book, but I couldn't find one, so I will just mention here that the answer to number 71 is incorrect. But, if you just remove the last sentence from the answer, then it is right.

I would recommend this book for all parents of children age 7 and up.The logic problems are presented as short and wonderfully written stories, and my children just love to solve them. Great reference book for any math teacher/math team coach as well.

I bought this book because I like math and puzzles, and a friend who teaches middle school math had mentioned that she and her class were having fun going through the puzzles. I really enjoyed the puzzles in this book, most of which are math or number oriented, but some of which are more like word riddles. The answers and thought processes used are in the back of the book, although I swear a couple are wrong! I know this sounds a little odd, but doing the puzzles at night was a great help a few nights with insomnia (so I could think through a logic or math problem in my head until I fell asleep, rather than let my mind wander to more stessful life events...)

In this tale, Raymond Smullyan takes us on a fantastic journey from Ancient Persia, when women befuddled kings for their lives. The book then takes a twist into the modern-day field of coercive logic and Godel's Incompleteness Theorm, all the time throwing enough puzzles at us to have us reeling and groping for an eternally mysterious truth. It has aided me greatly in my quest for logical understanding.

Ray Smullyan presents many different types of puzzles. I've read many puzzle books, and this is my favorite by far.

This book, by a well-known poser of puzzles, sets out of the order of a thousand logic puzzles in a format loosely styled upon the presentation of Scheherazade, but in a somewhat less entrancing way. The problem with logic is that there is just so much of it about. Perhaps the axiom 'less is more' might have been applied and some judicious excision of the more mechanical or repetitious examples been performed. The jewels are lost amongst the glass beads. Obviously by its nature mathematical logic eschews value judgements, but in the present case this seems to have been taken rather too literally.