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Do you mean Aha! Insight? I don't see a book just labeled "Aha". There is another Gardner book, Aha! Gotcha, which has a different emphasis than what I think y
by wging 5y ago
Do you mean Aha! Insight? I don't see a book just labeled "Aha".
There is another Gardner book, Aha! Gotcha, which has a different emphasis than what I think you're talking about, but is excellent. I loved it as a kid. Gotcha is more about mathematical paradoxes and intuition-breaking concepts. Hotel Infinity, "who shaves the barber who does not shave himself?", the 'unexpected tiger', Zeno's paradox is included I think..., the difference between average and median, Newcomb's problem, etc...
(the unexpected tiger: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unexpected_hanging_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unexpected_hanging_paradox)
I'm going to have to check this out based on how good Gotcha was.
- supernova87a 5y agoActually both books, but I was particularly thinking first of the "Aha Insight!" book, which has like 100 different problems where some clever thinking/turning around the problem statement helps to solve it. The other one ("Aha Gotcha"), you are right is more about paradoxes that arise when applying logic that seems to lead to contradictory outcomes. But it also has a lot of "change the way of thinking" answers.