1,000 Playthinks: Puzzles, Paradoxes, Illusions & Games

The title says it all - Play-Thinks. You have to think to solve the puzzles, and you enjoy doing it. Even better news is that the solutions are in the back. I use this book in my classroom for those kids who finish their work ahead of the others. They find a puzzle to present to the class on Friday, when our brains are otherwise fried.

This has been a really great item for me to use with my grandchildren. There are many puzzles that are appropriate for the different age levels of my family. Fun to use.

The puzzles/questions in the book are challenging but several times the author is too vague in his description and leaves the reader wondering what exactly the author is asking. Thus, the reader is left with several ways to interpret the puzzle/question. However, it is fun and I would still recommend it to help with critical thinking skills and nurturing creative thinking/ideas.

Maybe I'm just not smart enough to do these puzzles but some of them certainly require more detailed solutions than the ones offered or there isn't any point in having solutions. In addition there is way to much similarity in the puzzles, many of the so-called puzzles are more in the brain-teaser category (how can the purchaser of a parrot be dissatisfied if the parrot repeats every word it hears, as advertised?), at least one answer is either wrong or the problem is phrased improperly, some answers are impossible to comprehend (possibly just me again), there are some typos in the answers and finally there is no explication of some mathematical "rules" or "laws" that are used to justify answers.On the plus side the book is beautiful, user friendly, looks good on the coffee table and makes a great paper-weight/doorstop.If you like puzzles try Sam Loyd or Martin Gardner.

A huge variety of puzzles. Some of the puzzles as noted in other reviews have two or more equally good solutions, so your solution may be correct but not match the answer. Obviously not all solutions can be presented, so I think that if a reader is clever enough to find a solution that doesn't match the answer, they should also be able to verify it is indeed as good as the answer provided. So many puzzles and most of them are good. My daughter loves the book, but needs some help with many of the puzzles.

I teach gifted children, and I am always looking for something I can pull out quickly for the one or two students who finish their work early. This is a fantastic resource. In fact, I've had to put it up on a high shelf. Otherwise, my students run into the room and grab it. The puzzles really require thinking and concentration. The variety of puzzles provides something for any type of intelligence (math, verbal, etc.) and any age group. This would also be a good coffee table book for a waiting room, employee lounge, or your own living room. Hours of building new brain cells -- that's a good thing!

I teach in the gifted math program and one of my students brought this book in. The students were captivated by its thought provoking challenges. The challenges come in all levels so that it captures the interest of all range of students/adults. The solutions are in the back with great explainations. This book would be great for ages 8 through adult!

As I dipped into this book I became more and more annoyed. It has many, many mistakes, of all kinds, in it. Even in presenting well-known puzzles the author manages to make serious errors. Here are a few of the mistakes that I noticed:(Puzzle 307) Morley's theorem is (to quote the late H.S.M. Coxeter) "one on the most surprising theorems in elementary geometry", but Moscovich manages to get the diagram wrong! The triangle which he picks out does not even look equilateral!(Puzzle 772) For the well-known puzzle of passing a cube through a smaller cube the author begins his explanation: "If you hold a cube so that one corner points directly toward you, its edges outline a hexagon. It then becomes obvious that the cube has ample space for a square hole slightly larger than one of its faces." There is even a picture of a hexagon with a square superimposed on it. Although a cube can be passed through a (slightly) smaller cube in this way, it is well known that the optimum solution does not have the edges of the hole parallel to the space diagonal of the cube.(Puzzle 990) Weighing from 1 to 40 grams using weights on one side of a balance only. Moscovich says "you must have the weights 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 and 32 grams". Not so. For example, 1, 2, 4, 8, 9 and 16 would be ok.I began to compile a list of errors in this book, but I gave up when I had accumulated over 30, having read, I would estimate, about a quarter of the book.The book has a "Difficulty Index" which should be renamed the "Difficult Index". You have to know the exact title of a puzzle and its level (from 1 to 9), in order to find it again using this index.

If there is a better coffee-table book on maths out there, I haven't found it yet. It is beautifully produced, with full colour throughout and a loose leaf format which makes it easy to leave pages open while you work on the problems. The puzzles themselves cover geometry, graphs, shapes, patterns, numbers, probability and topology, as well as broader science topics, and range from straightforward to fiendishly complex. No matter what maths ability you have, there will be at least 100 puzzles in here to appeal to you. A must-own book.

パズルやゲームが1000コぎっしり。ところどころに「考えること」についてのコラムと名言がはいっているのもイイ。パズルのイラストも、絵だったり、写真だったり、図だったり、力はいっています。しかもリング綴じで、悩んでいるうちに本が閉じちゃったりしないようになっている。ほとんどの問題の英文も短いし、必ずイラストがついているので、気軽な英語学習にも向いているかも。１日１問やっていっても、ほぼ３年かかっちゃいます。全420ページで、オールカラー！　コストパフォーマンス良し！

I am very pleased with the purchase of this book. It offeres different sort of puzzles, illusions, brain games, geometry problems, word problems, scientific problems rated by its difficulty. Some of them are even suitable for the children from 7 years old.I liked the fact that each puzzle or problem has an explanation not only an answer. The book is very colourful and each drawing has an illustration to it which helps to solve it.

I really like this book. There's lots of puzzles in there to keep you busy. And it is really good puzzles. Not just silly questions like in other books. The only thing that I don't like is that it is quite big and heavy and not really handy to take it with you somewhere.But apart of size I can really recommend it to everyone.