The most beautiful mathematical puzzles
They have accompanied all lovers of beautiful mathematics, since the beginning: challenges, puzzles, problems. Arousing in turn astonishment, disbelief, fascination or bewilderment, they awaken our curiosity and ignite the spark of understanding.Puzzles have been part of human culture since antiquity, with the Greeks with Zeno, with the Arabs with Abu al-Wafa, in the Renaissance with Bachet de Méziriac. Great "conveyors" have passed on to us a thousand and one wonders, which inspired the founders of Tangente: Sam Loyd, Henry Dudeney, Martin Gardner? And some mathematical geniuses, Leonhard Euler and John Conway in the lead, have bequeathed us subjects of reflection and dazzling insights that have opened new fields of knowledge, still revisited today, extended, generalized - in short, that are far from becoming outdated!
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Timeless mathematical puzzles | Tangente
Puzzles have been part of human culture since earliest antiquity. At first, inventing puzzles was bound up with mythology or religion; gradually, it became a purely intellectual game, independent of any purpose or practical application.
Elegant problem-solving methods
The appeal of recreational mathematics is that it requires little formal knowledge. Yet there are ingenious techniques that are hardly ever taught.
Napoleon's problem
In this bicentenary year of 2021, let's revisit a result that bears his name. The emperor is said to have had a keen interest in geometry; according to one story, he once discussed the subject with two mathematicians of his day, Joseph Lagrange (1763–1813) and Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749–1827).
Martin Gardner's challenge: paradoxes | Tangente
Can a game in which one player's gain is the other's loss benefit both players? That was the question Martin Gardner posed in 1980 with his "Loser Takes All" problem. More than forty years on, the paradox remains as relevant as ever!
The mystery of the little pyramids
The triangle is undoubtedly one of the simplest figures in the plane, and its geometry is well understood. In three dimensions, however, the study of tetrahedra remains an active field full of surprises! One problem has just been completely solved, more than forty years after John Conway and Antonia Jones first posed it.
Sylvester's problem | Tangente
In 1893, the British mathematician James Joseph Sylvester (1814–1897) posed the following question in the Educational Times.
Euler's 36 officers problem | Tangente
In 1779, while the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler was at the court of Catherine of Russia, she asked him to investigate a problem that had been circulating in Saint Petersburg for some time, but that no one had managed to solve.
The haberdasher's puzzle and Dudeney's puzzle
Any polygon can be cut into finitely many pieces and rearranged to form any other polygon of the same area. This property holds in the plane, but its three-dimensional counterpart is false. It was conjectured by the Hungarian mathematician Farkas Bolyai (1775–1856).