Keys to Infinity

Clifford Pickover is by most standards a mathematics geek (Ph.D. research scientist for IBM, associate editor for two computer journals), but he is the coolest math geek you might ever meet. For this book he has compiled 30 chapters of mathematical puzzles (and one short story), all having some connection to the concept of infinity. These problems are open-ended; in the event that the reader actually solves the main puzzle, there are enough digressions, diversions, and tangents to keep even the fastest computer running for hours. Computer modelers will be happy to find that instructive BASIC and C language has been provided for most of the problems. Many puzzles have been previously posted on the Internet, and the best or weirdest replies have been included in this book.

If phrases like "Monte Carlo bootstrapping approximation" send you off the deep end, not to worry. These are not dry, dusty puzzles. In problems such as "The Loom of Creation," "Grid of the Gods," "Alien Abduction Algebra," and "The Infinity Worms of Callisto," Pickover has couched mathematical puzzles in bizarre science fiction scenarios to make them both fun and challenging. --Eric Warner