Math Puzzles

The interesting patterns & relationships among numbers has given rise to a huge number of math puzzles. There are magazines and websites devoted only to math puzzles. Martin Gardner is considered a doyen of math puzzles who was running a column on math puzzles for 25 years in the Scientific American.

Puzzles makes use logical thinking as well as have a glimpse of these patterns. The human mind has developed evolutionally to solve problems. Children find it enjoyable to solve logic puzzles which are within their mental abilities. Hence puzzles can be used to discover the joy of math as well as unconsciously practice computational procedures.

Math puzzles can be broadly divided into numerical, logical and spatial. But many puzzles overlap all these areas. Let us see a few examples.

1. Write numbers 1234 in the same order. Insert any acceptable math operating symbols between the numbers and get as many numbers as a result of the operations. A few examples.

   1. 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10

   2. 12 + 34 = 46

   3. 1 + 23 – 4 = 5

Number puzzles improve mental math abilities and importance of using brackets.

1. Use all number from 1 to 9.

2. Form three, 3-digit numbers and find the total.

3. Form the numbers in such a way that the total is maximum

4. Form the numbers in such a way that the total is minimum

5. Having got the minimum total, find how to get the next highest total

Though this puzzle is made of numbers, it is essentially an exercise in logic.

1. Here is the sketch of a prison with 8 cells. The prisoners have numbers from 1 to 8. Any 2 consecutive numbers (like 2 & 3 or 1 & 2 or 6 & 7) are called neighbouring numbers. Allot the prisoners to the rooms such that no two neighbouring numbers occupy cells which share a wall or even a corner.