''Wheels, Life and Other Mathematical Amusements'' is a book by

Martin Gardner Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914May 22, 2010) was an American popular mathematics and popular science writer with interests also encompassing magic, scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literatureespecially the writin ...

published in 1983. The Basic Library List Committee of the

Mathematical Association of America The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) is a professional society that focuses on mathematics accessible at the undergraduate level. Members include university A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary edu ...

has recommended its inclusion in undergraduate mathematics libraries.

''Wheels, Life and Other Mathematical Amusements'' is a book of 22 mathematical games columns that were revised and extended after being previously published in ''

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it, with more than 150 Nobel Pri ...

''. It is Gardner's 10th collection of columns, and includes material on

Conway's Game of Life The Game of Life, also known as Conway's Game of Life or simply Life, is a cellular automaton devised by the British mathematician John Horton Conway in 1970. It is a zero-player game, meaning that its evolution is determined by its initial ...

, supertasks, intransitive dice, braided

polyhedra In geometry, a polyhedron (: polyhedra or polyhedrons; ) is a three-dimensional figure with flat polygonal faces, straight edges and sharp corners or vertices. The term "polyhedron" may refer either to a solid figure or to its boundary su ...

combinatorial game theory Combinatorial game theory is a branch of mathematics and theoretical computer science that typically studies sequential games with perfect information. Research in this field has primarily focused on two-player games in which a ''position'' ev ...

, the

Collatz conjecture The Collatz conjecture is one of the most famous List of unsolved problems in mathematics, unsolved problems in mathematics. The conjecture asks whether repeating two simple arithmetic operations will eventually transform every positive integer ...

, mathematical card tricks, and

Diophantine equation ''Diophantine'' means pertaining to the ancient Greek mathematician Diophantus. A number of concepts bear this name: *Diophantine approximation In number theory, the study of Diophantine approximation deals with the approximation of real n ...

s such as

Fermat's Last Theorem In number theory, Fermat's Last Theorem (sometimes called Fermat's conjecture, especially in older texts) states that no three positive number, positive integers , , and satisfy the equation for any integer value of greater than . The cases ...

Reception

Dave Langford reviewed ''Wheels, Life and Other Mathematical Amusements'' for ''

White Dwarf A white dwarf is a Compact star, stellar core remnant composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. A white dwarf is very density, dense: in an Earth sized volume, it packs a mass that is comparable to the Sun. No nuclear fusion takes place i ...

'' #55, and stated that "Here too are revisions of the three famous pieces on Conway's solitaire game ''Life'', which has absorbed several National Debts' worth of computer time since 1970. Fascinating." The book was positively reviewed in several other mathematics and science journals.Additional reviews: * * * *

References

{{Italic title Books about mathematics Works by Martin Gardner

Contents

Reception

References