Numerical Brain Teasers

Exercise Your Mind

by Erica Sadun

Challenge your brain with math! Using nothing more than basic arithmetic and logic, you’ll be thrilled as answers slot into place. Whether purely for fun or to test your knowledge, you’ll sharpen your problem-solving skills and flex your mental muscles. All you need is logical thought, a little patience, and a clear mind. There are no gotchas here. These puzzles are the perfect introduction to or refresher for math concepts you may have only just learned or long since forgotten. Get ready to have more fun with numbers than you’ve ever had before.

Engage your analytical side with these numerical brain teasers. Math and logic puzzles help you stretch your mind to think in new ways. They flex your lateral thinking as you work through fresh problem styles. Each puzzle type comes with an explanation, a method for solving them, and solutions if you get stuck.

The puzzles in this book are short, self-contained, and “gritty.” They offer an enjoyable challenge and are designed to be solvable within a few minutes. You only need basic arithmetic to solve these puzzles; no advanced math required. There’s plenty of variety to keep things fresh. From wandering digits to magic triangles, from summing grids to water pails, you’ll find something that catches your interest. Each puzzle is brief, so use them as a warm-up to your daily work, for a delightful diversion on your coffee break, or solve a few while you wind down for the day.

Grab a pencil and your thinking cap, and get solving!

• Errata, typos, suggestions

Releases:

• P1.0 2023/01/03
• B4.0 2022/10/06
• B3.0 2022/09/21
• B2.0 2022/09/07

Preface

• Brain Teasers
  • Number Combinations
  • Summing Grids excerpt
  • Wandering Digits excerpt
  • Skips
  • Balanced Groups
  • Magic Triangles excerpt
  • Magic Squares
  • Group Grids
  • Water Pails
  • Digit Sum Squares
  • Mathsticks
  • Bit Puzzles