Why are telephone lines always knotted?
How many bottles of milk can a wooden box hold at most?
How to tie shoelaces with the shortest shoelaces?
Why do scientists say Easter is a quasicrystal?
If Constantine the Great knew how to program 0 and 1, could he save the fate of the Roman Empire? !
More importantly, how to cut the cake so that your half is not bigger than mine?
Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, shuffle ... Oh, back to the beginning, how does mathematics explain this poker player's nightmare? Why can only a few clever mathematicians prove what shape two soap bubbles should become together? What does the Moon Empire have to do with electronic circuits? How many colors do you need to color the map?
In this book, Stewart leads us through the world of brainstorming mathematics and has experienced an extraordinary journey. We will encounter twenty magical puzzles-some are serious practical applications, and some are problems that even the best mathematicians are puzzled by-all of which are fascinating and mysterious.
Stuart is a popular mathematical science writer. He revealed the strange mysteries of endless chess games, the crazy flashing fireflies, and of course, the best controversy about how to cut the cake. From shoelaces and soap bubbles to Silbinski's triangular washers, he tells us the diversity and strength of mathematics, with topics ranging from graphics, probability and logic, topology to quasicrystals.
There are twenty chapters in this book, and almost every chapter can be read independently, revealing a mathematical world that you never knew existed.