The Price of Cake: Clément and Guillaume Deslandes ***

This is a bit of an oddity that is likely to prove Marmite-like in attracting a mix of enthusiasm and dislike - so three stars is something of an average outcome. The authors describe it as 'a compendium of difficult mathematical riddles'. I don't think this is strictly accurate: these aren't riddles in any conventional sense, they are word-based mathematical problems or puzzles, but lack the wordplay that is essential to a riddle.

Which side of the divide you come down on is likely to depend on two factors. Whether you like indulging in mathematical problems, and whether you only like mathematical problems where an intuitive grasp is enough, or whether you enjoy ploughing through mathematical workings to get to the solution. I suspect my use of the word 'ploughing' there highlights that, while I personally do like them, I haven't the patience for problems that take a lot of working through.

For those of us with limited patience, there is a hints section that gives something of a pointer to the way of approaching the problem, before a detailed solutions section (the longest part of the book). It's probably best to give an example. The first 'riddle' says that a blacksmith has five chains, each with three links. He wants to make a chain 15 links long. Given he can open and close links, what is the minimum number he needs to open. The hint tells us that four links is obvious, but is it optimal? And the solution gives the actual answer.

Here the answer is practically one line: this is the kind of intuitive puzzle I find appealing. But with a fair number there was some mathematical working required. The subtitle mentions these are 'classic' riddles - and almost every popular mathematical problem I've come across is in there, from Monty Hall to the seven bridges of Koenigsberg, via plenty of statistical and speed of travel problems, both familiar and novel.

In practice, I did enjoy it rather more than I thought I would, though for me it would have worked better if the solutions had come straight after the relevant problems - I spent most of my time reading a problem, failing to solve it then flipping to the back to read the solution.

Not at all a bad book (though I wish the cover had looked a little less self-published) - but one with a very specific readership. You'll know if it's for you - and if it is, you should get a copy.

Paperback:

Kindle:
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here

Comments

The Antigravity Enigma - Andrew May ****

Antigravity - the ability to overcome the pull of gravity - has been a fantasy for thousands of years and subject to more scientific (if impractical) fictional representation since H. G. Wells came up with cavorite in The First Men in the Moon . But is it plausible scientifically? Andrew May does a good job of pulling together three ways of looking at our love affair with antigravity (and the related concept of cancelling inertia) - in science fiction, in physics and in pseudoscience and crankery. As May points out, science fiction is an important starting point as the concept was deployed there well before we had a good enough understanding of gravity to make any sensible scientific stabs at the idea (even though, for instance, Michael Faraday did unsuccessfully experiment with a possible interaction between gravity and electromagnetism). We then get onto the science itself, noting the potential impact on any ideas of antigravity that come from the move from a Newtonian view of a...

The World as We Know It - Peter Dear ***

History professor Peter Dear gives us a detailed and reasoned coverage of the development of science as a concept from its origins as natural philosophy, covering the years from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. inclusive If that sounds a little dry, frankly, it is. But if you don't mind a very academic approach, it is certainly interesting. Obviously a major theme running through is the move from largely gentleman natural philosophers (with both implications of that word 'gentleman') to professional academic scientists. What started with clubs for relatively well off men with an interest, when universities did not stray far beyond what was included in mathematics (astronomy, for instance), would become a very different beast. The main scientific subjects that Dear covers are physics and biology - we get, for instance, a lot on the gradual move away from a purely mechanical views of physics - the reason Newton's 'action at a distance' gravity caused such ...

It's On You - Nick Chater and George Loewenstein *****

Going on the cover you might think this was a political polemic - and admittedly there's an element of that - but the reason it's so good is quite different. It shows how behavioural economics and social psychology have led us astray by putting the focus way too much on individuals. A particular target is the concept of nudges which (as described in Brainjacking ) have been hugely over-rated. But overall the key problem ties to another psychological concept: framing. Huge kudos to both Nick Chater and George Loewenstein - a behavioural scientist and an economics and psychology professor - for having the guts to take on the flaws in their own earlier work and that of colleagues, because they make clear just how limited and potentially dangerous is the belief that individuals changing their behaviour can solve large-scale problems. The main thesis of the book is that there are two ways to approach the major problems we face - an 'i-frame' where we focus on the individual ...

Search This Blog