Summary

Famed puzzle expert explains math behind a multitude of mystifying tricks: card tricks, stage "mind reading," coin and match tricks, counting out games, geometric dissections, etc. Probability, sets, theory of numbers clearly explained. Also, more than 400 tricks, guaranteed to work, that you can do. 135 illustrations.

Author Biography

Martin Gardner was a renowned author who published over 70 books on subjects from science and math to poetry and religion. He also had a lifelong passion for magic tricks and puzzles. Well known for his mathematical games column in Scientific American and his "Trick of the Month" in Physics Teacher magazine, Gardner attracted a loyal following with his intelligence, wit, and imagination.

Martin Gardner: A Remembrance
The worldwide mathematical community was saddened by the death of Martin Gardner on May 22, 2010. Martin was 95 years old when he died, and had written 70 or 80 books during his long lifetime as an author. Martin's first Dover books were published in 1956 and 1957: Mathematics, Magic and Mystery, one of the first popular books on the intellectual excitement of mathematics to reach a wide audience, and Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, certainly one of the first popular books to cast a devastatingly skeptical eye on the claims of pseudoscience and the many guises in which the modern world has given rise to it. Both of these pioneering books are still in print with Dover today along with more than a dozen other titles of Martin's books. They run the gamut from his elementary Codes, Ciphers and Secret Writing, which has been enjoyed by generations of younger readers since the 1980s, to the more demanding The New Ambidextrous Universe: Symmetry and Asymmetry from Mirror Reflections to Superstrings, which Dover published in its final revised form in 2005.

To those of us who have been associated with Dover for a long time, however, Martin was more than an author, albeit a remarkably popular and successful one. As a member of the small group of long-time advisors and consultants, which included NYU's Morris Kline in mathematics, Harvard's I. Bernard Cohen in the history of science, and MIT's J. P. Den Hartog in engineering, Martin's advice and editorial suggestions in the formative 1950s helped to define the Dover publishing program and give it the point of view which — despite many changes, new directions, and the consequences of evolution — continues to be operative today.

In the Author's Own Words:
"Politicians, real-estate agents, used-car salesmen, and advertising copy-writers are expected to stretch facts in self-serving directions, but scientists who falsify their results are regarded by their peers as committing an inexcusable crime. Yet the sad fact is that the history of science swarms with cases of outright fakery and instances of scientists who unconsciously distorted their work by seeing it through lenses of passionately held beliefs."

"A surprising proportion of mathematicians are accomplished musicians. Is it because music and mathematics share patterns that are beautiful?" — Martin Gardner

Preface
1. Tricks with Cards--Part I
The Curiosities of Peirce
The Five Poker Hands
Tricks Using Cards as Counting Units
The Piano Trick
The Estimated Cut
Tricks Using the Numerical Values
Findley's Four-card Trick
A Baffling Prediction
Henry Christ's Improvement
The Cyclic Number
The Missing Card
Jordan's Method
Tricks Based on Division of Colors and Suits
Stewart James' Color Prediction
The Royal Pairs
Tricks Using Front and Back
Matching the Colors
Hummer's Reversal Mystery
The Little Moonies
2. Tricks with Cards--Part II
O'Connor's Four-ace Trick
The Magic of Manhattan
Predicting the Shift
The Keystone Card Discovery
Two-pile Location
Spelling the Spades
Elmsley's Card Coincidence
Magic by Mail
Belchou's Aces
The Tit-Tat-Toe Trick
Other Tricks of Interest
3. From Gergonne to Gargantua
Naming the Position of the Card
Bringing the Card to a Named Position
Walker's Method
Naming the Card
Relation to Ternary System
Gargantua's Ten-pile Problem
4. Magic with Common Objects
Dice
Guessing the Total
Frank Dodd's Prediction
Positional Notation Tricks
Hummer's Die Mystery
Dominoes
The Break in the Chain
The Row of Thirteen
Calendars
Magic Squares
Gibson's Circled Dates
Stover's Prediction
Calendar Memorizing
Watches
Tapping the Hours
Die and Watch Mystery
Dollar Bills
Heath's Bill Trick
Matches
The Three Heaps
Match Folder Mind-Reading
The Tramps and Chickens
The Purloined Objects
Coins
The Nine Mystery
Which Hand?
Heath's Variation
Heads or Tails?
Checkerboards
Hummer's Checker Trick
Miscellaneous Objects
Hummer's Three-Object Divination
Yates' Four-Object Divination
5. Topological Tomfoolery
The Afghan Bands
Handkerchief Tricks
Finger Escape
Tabor's Interlocked Handkerchiefs
Knotty Problems
String and Rope
Garter Tricks
The Giant's Garter
More String Tricks
Clothing
The Puzzling Loop
Reversing the Vest
Removing the Vest
Rubber Bands
The Jumping Band
The Twisted Band
6. Tricks with Special Equipment
Number Cards
Window Cards
Sam Lloyd's Version
Tap Tricks
Crazy Time
"Heath's "Tappit"
Tap-a-Drink
Tap-an-Animal
The Riddle Card
Dice and Domino Tricks
"Heath's "Di-Ciphering"
Sure-Shot Dice Box
Blyth's Domino Box
Blocks of India
Hummer Tricks
7. Geometrical Vanishes--Part I
The Line Paradox
Sam Lloyd's Flag Puzzle
The Vanishing Face
"Get Off the Earth"
DeLand's Paradox
The Vanishing Rabbit
Stover's Variations
8. Geometrical Vanishes--Part II
The Checkerboard Paradox
Hooper's Paradox
Square Variation
Fibonacci Series
Langman's Version
Curry's Paradox
Curry Triangles
Four-piece Squares
Three-piece Squares
Two-piece Squares
Curved and 3-D Forms
9. Magic with Pure Numbers
Rapid Cube Root Extraction
Adding a Fibonacci Series
Predicting a Number
Curry's Version
Al Baker's Version
Divining a Number
The Mysteries of Nine
Digital Roots
Persistent Root
Guessing Someone's Age
An Addition Trick
A Multiplication Trick
The Mysteries of Seven
Predicting a Sum
"Al Baker's "Numero"
Psychological Forces
Name Index

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