Gardner Martin. New Mathematical Diversions

Washington: The Mathematical Association of America, 1995. — 268 p. — ISBN: 0883855178.This is a book of mathematical jokes, if "joke" is taken in a sense broad enough to include any kind of mathematics that is mixed with a strong element of fun. Most mathematicians relish such play, though of course they keep it ivithin reasonable bounds. There is a fascination about recreational mathematics that can, for some persons, become a kind of drug. Vladimir Nabokov's great chess novel, The Defense, is about such a man. He permitted chess (one form of mathematical play) to dominate his mind so completely that he finally lost contact zuith the real world and ended his miserable life-game ivith ivhat chess problemists call a suimate or self-mate. He jumped out of a window. It is consistent with the steady disintegration of Nabokov's chess master that as a boy he had been a poor student, even in mathematics, at the same time that he had been "extraordinarily engrossed in a collection of problems entitled Merry Mathematics, in the fantastical misbehavior of numbers and the wayward frolic of geometric lines, in everything that the schoolbook lacked."The moral is: Enjoy mathematical play, if you have the mind and taste for it, but don't enjoy it too much. Let it provide occasional holidays. Let it stimulate your interest in serious science and mathematics. But keep it under firm control.