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A Quarter-Century of Recreational

The author of Scientific American’s column “Mathematical Games” from 1956 to 1981 recounts 25 years of amusing and serious discoveries

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“Amusement is one of the kamp of the University of fields of applied math.” California at Berkeley. Arti- —William F. White, cles on recreational mathe- A Scrapbook of matics also appear with in- Elementary Mathematics creasing frequency in mathe- matical periodicals. The quarterly Journal of Recrea- tional Mathematics began y “Mathemati- publication in 1968. cal Games” col- The line between entertain- Mumn began in ing math and serious math is the December 1956 issue of a blurry one. Many profes- Scientific American with an sional regard article on hexaflexagons. their work as a form of play, These curious structures, cre- in the same way professional ated by folding an ordinary golfers or basketball stars strip of paper into a hexagon might. In general, math is and then gluing the ends to- considered recreational if it gether, could be turned inside has a playful aspect that can out repeatedly, revealing one be understood and appreci-

or more hidden faces. The Gamma Liaison ated by nonmathematicians. structures were invented in Recreational math includes 1939 by a group of Princeton elementary problems with University graduate students. DONNA BISE elegant, and at times surpris- Hexaflexagons are fun to MARTIN GARDNER continues to tackle mathematical puz- ing, solutions. It also encom- play with, but more impor- zles at his home in Hendersonville, N.C. The 83-year-old writ- passes mind-bending para- tant, they show the link be- er poses next to a Klein bottle, an object that has just one sur- doxes, ingenious games, be- face: the bottle’s inside and outside connect seamlessly. tween recreational puzzles wildering magic tricks and and “serious” mathematics: topological curiosities such one of their inventors was Richard Feyn- lation from the French of La Mathéma- as Möbius bands and Klein bottles. In man, who went on to become one of the tique des Jeux (Mathematical Recrea- fact, almost every branch of mathemat- most famous theoretical physicists of tions), by Belgian number theorist Mau- ics simpler than has areas that the century. rice Kraitchik. But aside from a few other can be considered recreational. (Some At the time I started my column, only collections, that was about it. amusing examples are shown on the a few books on recreational mathemat- Since then, there has been a remark- opposite page.) ics were in print. The classic of the able explosion of books on the subject, genre—Mathematical Recreations and many written by distinguished mathe- Ticktacktoe in the Classroom Essays, written by the eminent English maticians. The authors include Ian Stew- W. W. Rouse Ball in art, who now writes Scientific Ameri- he monthly magazine published by 1892—was available in a version up- can’s “Mathematical Recreations” col- Tthe National Council of Teachers dated by another legendary figure, the umn; John H. Conway of Princeton of Mathematics, Mathematics Teacher, Canadian geometer H.S.M. Coxeter. University; Richard K. Guy of the Uni- often carries articles on recreational top- Dover Publications had put out a trans- versity of Calgary; and Elwyn R. Berle- ics. Most teachers, however, continue to

68 August 1998 A Quarter-Century of Copyright 1998 Scientific American, Inc. Four Puzzles from Martin Gardner (The answers are on page 75.)

1 2 ORPOLE TIONS BY IAN W A USTR ILL

1 1 1 3 3 3

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r. Jones, a cardsharp, puts three cards face down on a table. he matrix of numbers above is a curious type of . MOne of the cards is an ace; the other two are face cards. You TCircle any number in the matrix, then cross out all the numbers place a finger on one of the cards, betting that this card is the ace. in the same column and row. Next, circle any number that has not 1 The probability that you’ve picked the ace is clearly /3. Jones now se- been crossed out and again cross out the row and column containing cretly peeks at each card. Because there is only one ace among the that number. Continue in this way until you have circled six numbers. three cards, at least one of the cards you didn’t choose must be a face Clearly, each number has been randomly selected. But no matter card. Jones turns over this card and shows it to you. What is the prob- which numbers you pick, they always add up to the same sum. What ability that your finger is now on the ace? is this sum? And, more important, why does this trick always work?

3 4 12 3 456

78910 CUT THE DECK

11 12 13 14 15 16

17 18 19 20 21 22 23

24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

RIFFLE- 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 SHUFFLE

40 41 42 43 44 45 46

47 48 49 50 rinted above are the first three verses of Genesis in the King magician arranges a deck of cards so that the black and PJames Bible. Select any of the 10 words in the first verse: “In the A red cards alternate. She cuts the deck about in half, making sure beginning created the heaven and the earth.” Count the num- that the bottom cards of each half are not the same color. Then she ber of letters in the chosen word and call this number x. Then go to allows you to riffle-shuffle the two halves together, as thoroughly or the word that is x words ahead. (For example, if you picked “in,” go to carelessly as you please. When you’re done, she picks the first two “beginning.”) Now count the number of letters in this word—call it cards from the top of the deck. They are a black card and a red card n—then jump ahead another n words. Continue in this manner until (not necessarily in that order). The next two are also a black card and your chain of words enters the third verse of Genesis. a red card. In fact, every succeeding pair of cards will include one of On what word does your count end? Is the answer happenstance each color. How does she do it? Why doesn’t shuffling the deck pro- or part of a divine plan? duce a random sequence?

A Quarter-Century of Recreational Mathematics Scientific American August 1998 69 Copyright 1998 Scientific American, Inc. a b e

2 1

√3 ORPOLE c d IAN W

LOW-ORDER REP-TILES fit together to make larger replicas of themselves. The isosceles right triangle (a) is a rep-2 figure: two such triangles form a larger triangle with the same shape. A rep-3 triangle (b) has angles of 30, 60 and 90 degrees. Other rep- tiles include a rep-4 quadrilateral (c) and a rep-4 hexagon (d). The sphinx (e) is the only known rep-4 pentagon.

ignore such material. For 40 years I “Interactive learning,” as it is called, is ly. I took no math courses in college. My have done my best to convince educa- substituted for lecturing. Although there columns grew increasingly sophisticat- tors that recreational math should be are some positive aspects of the new ed as I learned more, but the key to the incorporated into the standard curricu- new math, I was struck by the fact that column’s popularity was the fascinating lum. It should be regularly introduced the yearbook had nothing to say about material I was able to coax from some as a way to interest young students in the value of recreational mathematics, of the world’s best mathematicians. the wonders of mathematics. So far, which lends itself so well to cooperative Solomon W. Golomb of the Universi- though, movement in this direction has problem solving. ty of Southern California was one of been glacial. Let me propose to teachers the follow- the first to supply grist for the column. I have often told a story from my own ing experiment. Ask each group of stu- In the May 1957 issue I introduced his high school years that illustrates the di- dents to think of any three-digit num- studies of polyominoes, shapes formed lemma. One day during math study pe- ber—let’s call it ABC. Then ask the stu- by joining identical squares along their riod, after I’d finished my regular as- dents to enter the sequence of digits edges. The —created from two signment, I took out a fresh sheet of pa- twice into their calculators, forming the such squares—can take only one shape, per and tried to solve a problem that number ABCABC. For example, if the but the , and pento- had intrigued me: whether the first play- students thought of the number 237, mino can assume a variety of forms: Ls, er in a game of ticktacktoe can always they’d punch in the number 237,237. Ts, squares and so forth. One of Gol- win, given the right strategy. When my Tell the students that you have the psy- omb’s early problems was to determine teacher saw me scribbling, she snatched chic power to predict that if they divide whether a specified set of polyominoes, the sheet away from me and said, “Mr. ABCABC by 13 there will be no remain- snugly fitted together, could cover a Gardner, when you’re in my class I ex- der. This will prove to be true. Now ask checkerboard without missing any pect you to work on mathematics and them to divide the result by 11. Again, squares. The study of polyominoes nothing else.” there will be no remainder. Finally, ask soon evolved into a flourishing branch The ticktacktoe problem would make them to divide by 7. Lo and behold, the of recreational mathematics. Arthur C. a wonderful classroom exercise. It is a original number ABC is now in the cal- Clarke, the science-fiction author, con- superb way to introduce students to culator’s readout. The secret to the trick fessed that he had become a “pentomi- combinatorial mathematics, game theo- is simple: ABCABC = ABC × 1,001 = no addict” after he started playing with ry, symmetry and probability. More- ABC × 7 × 11 × 13. (Like every other the deceptively simple figures. over, the game is part of every student’s integer, 1,001 can be factored into a Golomb also drew my attention to a experience: Who has not, as a child, unique set of prime numbers.) I know of class of figures he called “rep-tiles”— played ticktacktoe? Yet I know few no better introduction to identical polygons that fit together to mathematics teachers who have includ- and the properties of primes than ask- form larger replicas of themselves. One ed such games in their lessons. ing students to explain why this trick of them is the sphinx, an irregular pen- According to the 1997 yearbook of always works. tagon whose shape is somewhat similar the mathematics teachers’ council, the to that of the ancient Egyptian monu- latest trend in math education is called Polyominoes and Penrose Tiles ment. When four identical sphinxes are “the new new math” to distinguish it joined in the right manner, they form a from “the new math,” which flopped ne of the great joys of writing the larger sphinx with the same shape as its so disastrously several decades ago. The OScientific American column over components. The pattern of rep-tiles newest teaching system involves divid- 25 years was getting to know so many can expand infinitely: they tile the plane ing classes into small groups of students authentic mathematicians. I myself am by making larger and larger replicas. and instructing the groups to solve prob- little more than a journalist who loves The late , Denmark’s illus- lems through cooperative reasoning. mathematics and can write about it glib- trious inventor and poet, became a

70 Scientific American August 1998 A Quarter-Century of Recreational Mathematics Copyright 1998 Scientific American, Inc. DOG 3 1 2 4 PYRAMID

STAIRS

6 CHAIR 5 7 ORPOLE IAN W

STEAMER SOMA PIECES are irregular shapes formed by joining unit cubes at their faces (above). The seven pieces can be arranged in 240 ways to build the 3-by-3-by-3 . The pieces can also be assembled to form all but one of the structures pictured at the right. Can you determine which structure is impossible to build? The answer is on page 75. good friend through his contributions cent to exactly three counters. By ap- CASTLE to “Mathematical Games.” In the July plying these rules repeatedly, an aston- 1957 issue, I wrote about a topological ishing variety of forms can be created, game he invented called Hex, which is including some that move across the played on a diamond-shaped board board like insects. I described Life in the made of hexagons. Players place their October 1970 column, and it became an SKYSCRAPER markers on the hexagons and try to be instant hit among computer buffs. For the first to complete an unbroken chain many weeks afterward, business firms from one side of the board to the other. and research laboratories were almost BATHTUB The game has often been called John be- shut down while Life enthusiasts exper- cause it can be played on the hexagonal imented with Life forms on their com- tiles of a bathroom floor. puter screens. Hein also invented the Soma cube, Conway later collaborated with fel- which was the subject of several columns low mathematicians Richard Guy and (September 1958, July 1969 and Sep- on what I consider tember 1972). The Soma cube consists the greatest contribution to recreational TUNNEL of seven different , the three- mathematics in this century, a two-vol- dimensional analogues of polyominoes. ume work called Winning Ways (1982). They are created by joining identical One of its hundreds of gems is a two- cubes at their faces. The polycubes can person game called Phutball, which can be fitted together to form the Soma also be played on a go board. The Phut- cube—in 240 ways, no less—as well as ball is positioned at the center of the a whole panoply of Soma shapes: the board, and the players take turns plac- SOFA pyramid, the bathtub, the dog and so on. ing counters on the intersections of the In 1970 the mathematician John Con- grid lines. Players can move the Phutball way—one of the world’s undisputed ge- by jumping it over the counters, which WELL niuses—came to see me and asked if I are removed from the board after they had a board for the ancient Oriental have been leapfrogged. The object of game of go. I did. Conway then dem- the game is to get the Phutball past the onstrated his now famous simulation opposing side’s goal line by building a game called Life. He placed several chain of counters across the board. counters on the board’s grid, then re- What makes the game distinctive is that, moved or added new counters accord- unlike checkers, chess, go or Hex, Phut- ing to three simple rules: each counter ball does not assign different game piec- WALL with two or three neighboring counters es to each side: the players use the same is allowed to remain; each counter with counters to build their chains. Conse- one or no neighbors, or four or more quently, any move made by one Phut- neighbors, is removed; and a new coun- ball player can also be made by his or ter is added to each empty space adja- her opponent.

A Quarter-Century of Recreational Mathematics Scientific American August 1998 71 Copyright 1998 Scientific American, Inc. Other mathematicians who contrib- mathematical art of Maurits C. Escher, few years later a 3-D form of Penrose uted ideas for the column include Frank which appeared on the cover of the tiling became the basis for constructing Harary, now at New Mexico State Uni- April 1961 issue of Scientific American, a previously unknown type of molecu- versity, who generalized the game of as well as the nonperiodic tiling discov- lar structure called a quasicrystal. Since ticktacktoe. In Harary’s version of the ered by , the British math- then, physicists have written hundreds game, presented in the April 1979 is- ematical physicist famous for his work of research papers on quasicrystals and sue, the goal was not to form a straight on relativity and black holes. their unique thermal and vibrational line of Xs or Os; instead players tried to Penrose tiles are a marvelous exam- properties. Although Penrose’s idea be the first to arrange their Xs or Os in ple of how a discovery made solely for started as a strictly recreational pursuit, a specified , such as an L or the fun of it can turn out to have an un- it paved the way for an entirely new a square. Ronald L. Rivest of the Mas- expected practical use. Penrose devised branch of solid-state physics. sachusetts Institute of Technology al- two kinds of shapes, “kites” and lowed me to be the first to reveal—in “darts,” that cover the plane only in a Leonardo’s Flush Toilet the August 1977 column—the “public- nonperiodic way: no fundamental part key” cipher system that he co-invented. of the pattern repeats itself. I explained he two columns that generated the It was the first of a of ciphers that the significance of the discovery in the Tgreatest number of letters were my revolutionized the field of cryptology. I January 1977 issue, which featured a April Fools’ Day column and the one also had the pleasure of presenting the pattern of Penrose tiles on its cover. A on Newcomb’s paradox. The hoax col- umn, which appeared in the April 1975 issue, purported to cover great break- a IN THE GAME OF LIFE, forms evolve by following rules throughs in science and math. The start- set by mathematician John H. Conway. If four “organ- isms” are initially arranged in a square block of cells (a), ling discoveries included a refutation of the Life form does not change. Three other initial patterns relativity theory and the disclosure that (b, c and d) evolve into the stable “beehive” form. The fifth Leonardo da Vinci had invented the flush BLOCK pattern (e) evolves into the oscillating “traffic lights” figure, toilet. The column also announced that which alternates between vertical and horizontal rows. the opening chess move of pawn to king’s rook 4 was a certain game win- ner and that e raised to the power of b π × √163 was exactly equal to the inte- ger 262,537,412,640,768,744. To my amazement, thousands of readers failed to recognize the column as a joke. Ac- companying the text was a complicated BEEHIVE map that I said required five colors to ensure that no two neighboring regions were colored the same. Hundreds of readers sent me copies of the map col- c ored with only four colors, thus up- holding the four-color theorem. Many readers said the task had taken days. Newcomb’s paradox is named after physicist William A. Newcomb, who BEEHIVE originated the idea, but it was first de- scribed in a technical paper by Harvard University philosopher . The paradox involves two closed box- d es, A and B. Box A contains $1,000. Box B contains either nothing or $1 million. You have two choices: take only Box B or take both boxes. Taking both obviously seems to be the better BEEHIVE choice, but there is a catch: a superbe- ing—God, if you like—has the power of

e ORPOLE IAN W

72 Scientific American August 1998 A Quarter-Century of Recreational Mathematics Copyright 1998 Scientific American, Inc. φ 36° 36° 72° ° 1 36 1

φ 1 φ ° 36° 36 36° 72° φ

1 + √5 φ = 2

PENROSE TILES can be constructed by dividing a rhombus into a “kite” and a “dart” such that the ratio of their diagonals is phi (φ), the (above). Arranging five of the darts around a vertex creates a star. Placing 10 kites around the star and extending the tiling symmetrically generate the infinite star pattern (right). Other tilings around a vertex include the deuce, jack and queen, which can also generate infinite pat- terns of kites and darts (below right). knowing in advance how you will choose. If he predicts that out of greed you will take both boxes, he leaves B empty, and you will get only the $1,000 in A. But if he pre- dicts you will take only Box B, he puts $1 million in it. You have watched this game played many times with oth- DEUCE ers, and in every case when the player chose both boxes, he or she found that B was empty. And every time a player chose only Box B, he or she became a millionaire. How should you choose? The prag- JACK QUEEN matic argument is that because of the previous games you have witnessed, you can assume that the superbeing ORPOLE does indeed have the power to make Box B. But if you choose both boxes, at IAN W accurate predictions. You should there- least you’ll get the $1,000 in A. And if fore take only Box B to guarantee that B contains $1 million, you’ll get the mil- solved. My personal opinion is that the you will get the $1 million. But wait! lion plus another thousand. So how can paradox proves, by leading to a logical The superbeing makes his prediction you lose by choosing both boxes? contradiction, the impossibility of a su- before you play the game and has no Each argument seems unassailable. perbeing’s ability to predict decisions. I power to alter it. At the moment you Yet both cannot be the best strategy. No- wrote about the paradox in the July make your choice, Box B is either emp- zick concluded that the paradox, which 1973 column and received so many let- ty, or it contains $1 million. If it is emp- belongs to a branch of mathematics ters afterward that I packed them into a ty, you’ll get nothing if you choose only called decision theory, remains unre- carton and personally delivered them to Nozick. He analyzed the letters in a guest column in the March 1974 issue. Magic squares have long been a pop- ular part of recreational math. What makes these squares magical is the ar- rangement of numbers inside them: the numbers in every column, row and di- agonal add up to the same sum. The TRAFFIC LIGHTS numbers in the magic square are usual- ly required to be distinct and run in

A Quarter-Century of Recreational Mathematics Scientific American August 1998 73 Copyright 1998 Scientific American, Inc. day’s fastest supercomputers. Such a magic square would probably not have The Vanishing Area Paradox any practical use. Why then are mathe- maticians trying to find it? Because it onsider the figures shown below. Each pattern is made with the same 16 might be there. Cpieces: four large right triangles, four small right triangles, four eight-sided pieces and four small squares. In the pattern on the left, the pieces fit together The Amazing Dr. Matrix snugly, but the pattern on the right has a square hole in its center! Where did this extra bit of area come from? And why does it vanish in the pattern on the left? very year or so during my tenure at EScientific American, I would devote a column to an imaginary interview with a numerologist I called Dr. Irving Joshua Matrix (note the “666” provid- ed by the number of letters in his first, middle and last names). The good doc- tor would expound on the unusual prop- erties of numbers and on bizarre forms of wordplay. Many readers thought Dr. Matrix and his beautiful, half-Japanese daughter, Iva Toshiyori, were real. I re- call a letter from a puzzled Japanese reader who told me that Toshiyori was a most peculiar surname in Japan. I had taken it from a map of Tokyo. My in- The secret to this paradox—which I devised for the “Mathematical Games” col- formant said that in Japanese the word umn in the May 1961 issue of Scientific American—will be revealed in the Letters means “street of old men.” to the Editors section of next month’s issue. Impatient readers can find the an- I regret that I never asked Dr. Matrix swer at www.sciam.com on the World Wide Web. —M.G. ORPOLE for his opinion on the preposterous

IAN W 1997 best-seller The Bible Code, which claims to find predictions of the future in the arrangement of Hebrew letters in consecutive order, starting with one. magic hexagon—and that no magic hex- the Old Testament. The book employs There exists only one order-3 magic agons of any other size are possible! a cipher system that would have made square, which arranges the digits one What if the numbers in a magic square Dr. Matrix proud. By selectively apply- through nine in a three-by-three grid. are not required to run in consecutive ing this system to certain blocks of text, (Variations made by rotating or reflect- order? If the only requirement is that inquisitive readers can find hidden pre- ing the square are considered trivial.) In the numbers be distinct, a wide variety dictions not only in the Old Testament contrast, there are 880 order-4 magic of order-3 magic squares can be con- but also in the New Testament, the Ko- squares, and the number of arrange- structed. For example, there is an infin- ran, —and even ments increases rapidly for higher orders. ite number of such squares that contain in the pages of The Bible Code itself. Surprisingly, this is not the case with distinct prime numbers. Can an order-3 The last time I heard from Dr. Matrix, magic hexagons. In 1963 I received in magic square be made with nine distinct he was in Hong Kong, investigating the the mail an order-3 magic hexagon de- square numbers? Two years ago in an accidental appearance of π in well- vised by Clifford W. Adams, a retired article in Quantum, I offered $100 for known works of fiction. He cited, for clerk for the Reading Railroad. I sent such a pattern. So far no one has come example, the following sentence frag- the magic hexagon to Charles W. Trigg, forward with a “square of squares”— ment in chapter nine of book two of a mathematician at Los Angeles City but no one has proved its impossibility H. G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds: College, who proved that this elegant either. If it exists, its numbers would be “For a time I stood regarding...” The pattern was the only possible order-3 huge, perhaps beyond the reach of to- letters in the words give π to six digits! SA

The Author Further Reading

MARTIN GARDNER wrote the “Mathematical Games” col- Recreations in the Theory of Numbers. Albert H. Beiler. Dover umn for Scientific American from 1956 to 1981 and continued to Publications, 1964. contribute columns on an occasional basis for several years after- Mathematics: Problem Solving through Recreational ward. These columns are collected in 15 books, ending with The Mathematics. Bonnie Averbach and Orin Chein. W. H. Freeman Last Recreations (Springer-Verlag, 1997). He is also the author of and Company, 1986. , The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener, The Mathematical Recreations and Essays. 13th edition. W. W. Ambidextrous Universe, Relativity Simply Explained and The Rouse Ball and H.S.M. Coxeter. Dover Publications, 1987. Flight of Peter Fromm, the last a novel. His more than 70 other Penguin Edition of Curious and Interesting . books are about science, mathematics, , and David Wells. Penguin, 1991. his principal hobby, conjuring. Mazes of the Mind. Clifford Pickover. St. Martin’s Press, 1992.

74 Scientific American August 1998 A Quarter-Century of Recreational Mathematics Copyright 1998 Scientific American, Inc. Answers to the Four Gardner Puzzles (The puzzles are on page 69.)

1 I discussed Kruskal’s principle in my February 1978 column. 1. Most people guess that the probability has risen from /3 to 1 Mathematician John Allen Paulos applies the principle to word /2. After all, only two cards are face down, and one must be 1 chains in his upcoming book Once upon a Number. the ace. Actually, the probability remains /3. The probability 2 that you didn’t pick the ace remains /3, but Jones has elimi- nated some of the uncertainty by showing that one of the 4. For simplicity’s sake, imagine a deck of only 10 cards, with the 2 black and red cards alternating like so: BRBRBRBRBR. Cutting two unpicked cards is not the ace. So there is a /3 probability that the other unpicked card is the ace. If Jones gives you the this deck in half will produce two five-card decks: BRBRB and option to change your bet to that card, you should take it (un- RBRBR. At the start of the shuffle, the bottom card of one deck less he’s slipping cards up his sleeve, of course). is black, and the bottom card of the other deck is red. If the red card hits the table first, the bottom cards of both decks will then be black, so the next card to fall will create a black- red pair on the table. And if the black card drops first, the bot- tom cards of both decks will be red, so the next card to fall will create a red-black pair. After the first two cards drop—no mat- 2 1 3 3 ter which deck they came from—the situation will be the same as it was in the beginning: the bottom cards of the I introduced this problem in my October 1959 column in a decks will be different colors. The process then repeats, guar- slightly different form—instead of three cards, the problem anteeing a black and red card in each successive pair, even if involved three prisoners, one of whom had been pardoned some of the cards stick together (below). by the governor. In 1990 , the author of a popular column in Parade magazine, presented still another THOROUGH SHUFFLE STICKY SHUFFLE version of the same problem, involving three doors and a car behind one of them. She gave the correct answer but re- ceived thousands of angry letters—many from mathemati- cians—accusing her of ignorance of ! The fracas generated a front-page story in . OR This phenomenon is 2. The sum is 111. The trick always works because the matrix of known as the Gilbreath numbers is nothing more than an old-fashioned addition principle after its discover- table (below). The table is generated by two sets of numbers: er, Norman Gilbreath, a (3, 1, 5, 2, 4, 0) and (25, 31, 13, 1, 7, 19). Each number in the ma- California magician. I first trix is the sum of a pair of numbers in the two sets. When you explained it in my column choose the six circled in August 1960 and discussed it again in July 1972. Magicians 3 1 5 2 4 0 numbers, you are se- have invented more than 100 card tricks based on this princi- 25 lecting six pairs that ple and its generalizations. —M.G. together include all 31 12 of the generating numbers. So the sum 10 12 16 13 of the circled num- bers is always equal to 13 4 2 19 1 the sum of the 12 generating numbers. 7 These special magic 15 8 5 7 3 squares were the sub- 19 ject of my January 14 6 1 17 1957 column. 9 11 18 3. Each chain of words ends on “God.” This answer may seem providential, but it is actually the result of the Kruskal Count, a mathematical principle first noted by mathematician Martin MAGIC HEXAGON Kruskal in the 1970s. When the total number of words in a text has a unique property: every straight is significantly greater than the number of letters in the long- row of cells adds up to 38. est word, it is likely that any two arbitrarily started word chains will intersect at a keyword. Af- ter that point, of course, the SKYSCRAPER chains become identical. As the cannot be built from Soma pieces. text lengthens, the likelihood (The puzzle is on page 71.)

ORPOLE of intersection increases. IAN W

A Quarter-Century of Recreational Mathematics Scientific American August 1998 75 Copyright 1998 Scientific American, Inc.