Mathematical Puzzles and Paradoxes - Sarah Hart

Many puzzles have a long history, such as water pouring puzzles, where you need to measure (for example) one pint of water equipped only with an eight-pint and a five-pint jug. The mathematics behind the solution has many useful applications. Meanwhile, paradoxes such as: “some men shave themselves; those that do not shave themselves are shaved by the barber: who shaves the barber?” lead us to deep questions about set theory. We will discuss several examples and the related mathematics. This...