Puzzles from Other Worlds

by Martin Gardner

Presents thirty-seven science fiction tales, each featuring a puzzle by a master puzzle-maker

Genres: Puzzles

189 pages, Paperback

First published June 12, 1984

About the author

Martin Gardner was an American mathematics and science writer specializing in recreational mathematics, but with interests encompassing micromagic, stage magic, literature (especially the writings of Lewis Carroll), philosophy, scientific skepticism, and religion. He wrote the Mathematical Games column in Scientific American from 1956 to 1981, and published over 70 books.

Reviews

[Maurizio Codogno · Rating 4 out of 5]

There should have been quite a number of people named "Martin Gardner". No single person could have written all this material.
Puzzles from Other Worlds is the second collection of the columns Gardner wrote... no, not for "Scientific American" but for "Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine". Given the place, it's natural that the frame of the problems is set in the future; but it's just a nice way to colour the text, so that it is nicer.

There are not only math problems, but also wordplay; some quiz is probably outdated (look at the showbiz, just to have an idea), but it does not matter a lot. Most problems have a second, third and even fourth spinoff, so that the reader could enjoy them even more. A nice book: let's hope that it will be reissued.

[David Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Flipping back and forth between sections of this pulpy old paperback to check my answers soon led to chunks of pages coming unglued from the spine. Not an ideal circumstance, but I persisted.

Gardner's clever little tales of whacked-out Sci-Fi situations serve as hilariously flimsy pretexts for puzzles in mathematics, science, language and logic. I grew fond of the recurring characters and conceits (such as the spaceship Bagel), and I smiled at the irreverent, gently politically incorrect humor, as well as the running joke of flattering Isaac Asimov in the pages of his own magazine.

I'm not actually savvy enough with math to have solved all these problems myself, and as for a few of the ones I knew I could solve in principle, my habit of reading this book in bed at night, without much scratch paper at hand, meant I had to be content with simply knowing the method I was supposed to use, and trusting in Gardner himself to run me through the numbers. I learned a lot regardless, so I'd say it was time well spent.

[Remo · Rating 3 out of 5]

De nuevo Martin Gardner con sus recopilaciones. Esta no la hizo para el Scientific American, como la mayoría de las que salen recopiladas en sus libros, sino para una revista de ciencia ficción. Siguiendo su estilo, incluso los problemas fáciles admiten complejidad creciente al ir haciendo preguntas nuevas, y otros problemas requieren de no una sino dos ideas felices concatenadas para meterles mano. Aun así, me entretuvo.

[Triblastico · Rating 1 out of 5]

Lectura tediosa con la que no he conseguido conectar. En algunas ocasiones los acertijos eran muy sencillos, en otras la complejidad se disparaba.