Impossible?: Surprising Solutions to Counterintuitive Conundrums

By Julian Havil

Book Overview

In Nonplussed , popular-math writer Julian Havil delighted readers with a mind-boggling array of implausible yet true mathematical paradoxes. Now Havil is back with Impossible? , another marvelous medley of the utterly confusing, profound, and unbelievable--and all of it mathematically irrefutable. Whenever Forty-second Street in New York is temporarily closed, traffic doesn't gridlock but flows more smoothly--why is that? Or consider that cities that build new roads can experience dramatic increases in traffic congestion--how is this possible? What does the game show Let's Make A Deal reveal about the unexpected hazards of decision-making? What can the game of cricket teach us about the surprising behavior of the law of averages? These are some of the counterintuitive mathematical occurrences that readers encounter in Impossible? Havil ventures further than ever into territory where intuition can lead one astray. He gathers entertaining problems from probability and statistics along with an eclectic variety of conundrums and puzzlers from other areas of mathematics, including classics of abstract math like the Banach-Tarski paradox. These problems range in difficulty from easy to highly challenging, yet they can be tackled by anyone with a background in calculus. And the fascinating history and personalities associated with many of the problems are included with their mathematical proofs. Impossible? will delight anyone who wants to have their reason thoroughly confounded in the most astonishing and unpredictable ways.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0691131317
• ISBN13: 9780691131313
• Release Date: April 2008
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Length: 264 Pages
• Weight: 1.04 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

I liked what I saw so far.

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.

entertaining and stimulating

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

you may be a little too surprised by these surprises to be surprised

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