Lest your students' math skills atrophy during the summer, you might want to recommend this collection of 82 tantalizing, brain-teasing puzzles for their vacation enjoyment. This is just the book for the whole family on that long car trip or flight. Divided in two sections, the first has 75 warm-up puzzles and the second 75 killers. Each section is followed by answers and explanations for approaching the problems. Open the book and watch time fly.
Some puzzles require pencil and paper.
Dr. Broth has just returned from a conference on the Hyde-Body problem when he discovers that his briefcase containing his life's work on indopithecine tribal kinship equations is missing. The tale progresses by puzzles of differing difficulty and format. Rosenthal's illustrations might remind you of the Katzenjammer Kids. This would make a great motivator for middle or high school math classes. Like all good biographers, Bodanis investigates his subject's ancestors, in this case the symbols used in Einstein's equation.