Gardner, Martin: Aha! Gotcha
Paradoxes to Puzzle and Delight
©1975 Scientific American, Inc.
Softcover, 162 pages

©1982 W.H. Freeman and Co., NY
Aha! Gotcha
Image courtesy eBay seller Slacks!
Martin Gardner: Aha! Gotcha

Comments: Although not a magic book, many of the concepts in Martin Gardner's mathematical recreations books can be used for magic patter and ideas. For example, in Tom Craven's Lecture Notes, "Magic You Can Do", he turns the topical puzzle "The Vanishing Leprechaun" (page 67) into a magic trick.

Contents:

1 Chapter 1 Logic: Paradoxes about truth-tellers, liars, crocodiles, and barbers
4 The Liar Paradox
6 Buttons and Graffiti
8 A Sentence and Its Opposite
9 The Crazy Computer
10 Infinite Regress
12 The Plato-Socrates Paradox
13 Alice and the Red King
14 Crocodile and Baby
15 The Don Quixote Paradox
16 The Barber Paradox
17 Astrologer, Robot, and Catalog
19 Dull Versus Interesting
20 Semantics and Set Theory
21 Metalanguages
23 Theory of Types
24 The Swami's Prediction
26 The Unexpected Tiger
28 Newcombs Paradox

31 Chapter 2 Number: Paradoxes about Integers, fractions, and an infinite ladder
34 The Six Chair Mystery
35 The Elusive Profit
37 Population Implosion
38 The Ubiquitous Number 9
40 The Bewildered Bus Driver
42 The Missing Dollar
44 Magic Matrix
46 The Curious Will
48 The Amazing Code
50 Hotel Infinity
52 The Ladder of Alephs

55 Chapter 3 Geometry: Paradoxes about plane, solid, and impossible shapes
58 Getting Around a Girl
59 The Great Moon Mystery
61 Minor Magic
63 Cubes and Ladies
64 Randi's Remarkable Rugs
67 The Vanishing Leprechaun
69 The Great Bank Swindle
70 The Amazing Inside Out Doughnut
72 The Bewildering Braid
74 The Inescapable Point
76 Impossible Objects
77 A Pathological Curve
78 The Unknown Universe
81 Antimatter

83 Chapter 4 Probability: Paradoxes about chance, wagers, and beliefs
87 The Gambler's Fallacy
90 Four Kittens
93 Three-Card Swindle
96 The Elevator Paradox
98 The Bewildered Girlfriends
100 Three Shell Game
102 Chuck A Luck
104 Puzzling Panots
106 The Wallet Game
107 The Pnnciple of Indifference
109 Pascal's Wager

111 Chapter 5 Statistics: Paradoxes about gismos. clumps, ravens, and grue
114 The Deceptive "Average"
116 Mother of the Year
117 Jumping to Conclusions
119 The Small-World Paradox
120 What's Your Sign?
122 Patterns in Pi
123 Jason and the Sun
124 Crazy Clumps
126 An Amazing Card Trick
128 The Voting Paradox
130 Miss Lonelyhearts
133 Hempels Ravens
135 Goodman's Grue

137 Chapter 6 Time: Paradoxes about motion, supertasks, time travel and reversed time
140 Carroll's Crazy Clocks
141 The Perplexing Wheel
142 The Frustrated Skier
143 Zeno's Paradoxes
145 The Rubber Rope
147 Supertasks
148 Mary, Tom, and Fido
150 Can Time Go Backward?
152 Time Machines
153 The Tachyon Telephone
154 Parallel Worlds
156 Time Dilation
158 Fate, Chance, and Free Will

161 References and Suggested Readings



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