Entertaining mathematics is one of the most beloved by readers of the genres of popular literature. Solving its non-standard peculiar tasks, people experience the joy of joining creative thinking, intuitively feel the beauty and greatness of mathematics, they realize the absurdity of the widespread, but nevertheless deeply erroneous idea of it as something dull and frozen (“Is it in mathematics isn't everything open yet? ”), they begin to understand why mathematicians, speaking about their science, often resort to aesthetic categories (“ elegant result ”,“ beautiful proof ”). At the same time, entertaining mathematics is not only an effective means of agitating the younger generation in favor of choosing a profession, one way or another connected with the exact sciences, and not only a reasonable means of filling the leisure of adults. Entertaining mathematics is primarily mathematics, and in its best examples, mathematics is excellent. No wonder the prominent English mathematician J. Littlewood noted that a good mathematical joke is better than a dozen mediocre works. Helping people who are far from mathematical thinking in their daily lives to comprehend the spirit of true mathematics, entertaining mathematics arouses observation in them, the ability to think logically, faith in one's own strength and precious ability to perceive beauty.
Book Amusements in Mathematics (by Henry Ernest Dudeney)
