1000 Play Thinks: Puzzles, Paradoxes, Illusions & Games [ILLUSTRATED] (Plastic Comb)

by Ivan Moscovich (Author), Ian Stewart (Foreword)

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal
Adult/High School-Moscovich believes that "now that most of the physical frontiers have been crossed the mental ones beckon us." He has created these visual challenges, riddles, and puzzles to help push thinking into these new frontiers. Some of them are completely original; others are adaptations of classic challenges. They are bold, bright, colorful, and genuinely inviting. They are arranged by mathematical or scientific category, and ranked by a degree of difficulty from 1 to 10. A key further subdivides them into mind puzzles, pencil-and-paper puzzles, those that must be traced or copied, and, finally, those that require cutting. Most can be done alone; some are for groups. When complete and total frustration has set in, readers can turn to the back of the book for the solutions, which are clearly illustrated and explained. Sidebars explain the mathematical or scientific principles involved. The spiral binding allows the book to lie flat. Put this out where teens can see it and you'll find them poring over the puzzles, trying to figure them out.
Jane S. Drabkin, Chinn Park Regional Library, Prince William, VA
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Product Description
1000 PLAYTHINKS is the most compulsive, head-scratching, and-at 5.08 pounds-gargantuan puzzle book ever. An obsessive collection of 1,000 challenges, puzzles, riddles, illusions-both original as well as must-do classics. Jam-packed on the page and illustrated throughout in full-color, with a visual for each entry, the book, opened anywhere, is like a call to action. And once started it's hard to stop, because at the end of every successfully completed game the puzzle-solver feels smart, successful, and at one with the beauty of mathematics.

Created by Ivan Moscovich, PLAYTHINKS is the first and only book where science, math, and art puzzles all come together. Broken down by chapter, PLAYTHINKS challenges with 12 basic categories, including games of Geometry; Patterns; Numbers; Logic and Probability; and Perception. A special Bonus Round is included for die-hard puzzlers who, after all that, still haven't had enough. An easy-to-read key at the top of each game ranks its difficulty on a scale of 1 to 10. The lie-flat spiral binding makes the hefty book completely reader-friendly. So do the answers in the back.

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Product Details

• Plastic Comb: 420 pages
• Publisher: Workman Publishing Company (October 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0761118268
• ISBN-13: 978-0761118268
• Product Dimensions: 11.7 x 11 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #381,204 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Riddled with errors, January 9, 2004

By	Mr. Clive J. Tooth "clivetooth" (UK) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As I dipped into this book I became more and more annoyed. It has many, many mistakes, of all kinds, in it. Even in presenting well-known puzzles the author manages to make serious errors. Here are a few of the mistakes that I noticed:

(Puzzle 307) Morley's theorem is (to quote the late H.S.M. Coxeter) "one on the most surprising theorems in elementary geometry", but Moscovich manages to get the diagram wrong! The triangle which he picks out does not even look equilateral!

(Puzzle 772) For the well-known puzzle of passing a cube through a smaller cube the author begins his explanation: "If you hold a cube so that one corner points directly toward you, its edges outline a hexagon. It then becomes obvious that the cube has ample space for a square hole slightly larger than one of its faces." There is even a picture of a hexagon with a square superimposed on it. Although a cube can be passed through a (slightly) smaller cube in this way, it is well known that the optimum solution does not have the edges of the hole parallel to the space diagonal of the cube.

(Puzzle 990) Weighing from 1 to 40 grams using weights on one side of a balance only. Moscovich says "you must have the weights 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 and 32 grams". Not so. For example, 1, 2, 4, 8, 9 and 16 would be ok.

I began to compile a list of errors in this book, but I gave up when I had accumulated over 30, having read, I would estimate, about a quarter of the book.

The book has a "Difficulty Index" which should be renamed the "Difficult Index". You have to know the exact title of a puzzle and its level (from 1 to 9), in order to find it again using this index.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Engaging High Interest Book!, December 8, 2001

By	K.Wegley "wegley4" (St. Charles, IL United States) - See all my reviews

I teach in the gifted math program and one of my students brought this book in. The students were captivated by its thought provoking challenges. The challenges come in all levels so that it captures the interest of all range of students/adults. The solutions are in the back with great explainations. This book would be great for ages 8 through adult!

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Pretty but Unacceptably Flawed, August 16, 2003

By	Linda Bailey "robystore" (Houston, TX United States) - See all my reviews

I bought this book because it is beautiful and it looked like fun brain exercise. But much to my disappointment I found too many mistakes in the answers. A good example is the very pretty Pick Up Sticks. The answer in the back is most definitely wrong! I find this type of error in this type of book to be unacceptable, and think it could be very frustrating and discouraging to a person that might not be able to tell whether or not their answer was indeed correct and the book was wrong. I returned my copy to the book store.