Huevos, nudos y otros mitos

For more than three decades, Martin Gardner reinvented the genre of mathematical recreation in his prestigious games column. The renowned popularizer here collects new and intricate challenges, mixing them with historical anecdotes, scientific axioms, physical and philosophical principles. Did you know, for example, that Descartes, in addition to inventing that "I think, therefore I am", discovered the geometry of the egg? Eggs are not only good for omelettes, they are also little oval wonders that have fascinated many great physicists for the perfection of their shape. The ambition to put them right, as Gardner tells us, drove everyone in a Chinese city crazy. The tricks that can be done with full and empty eggs or with half shells are all based on the secret of their curvature, different in each specimen but the same in its formula. A subject that has fascinated sailors, postal workers, biologists, crochet grandmothers, and French psychoanalysts alike is the topology of knots. So take a break and play with numbers and words without the slightest pressure.