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CS 32: External Resources

Writing

• The UVM Writing Center provides free assistance to all UVM students and staff. They can answer questions about grammar, punctuation, citations, writing style, etc. They will even help you proofread your assignments. Call 802–656–4075 for an appointment.

Resources on Racket

• www.racket-lang.org has free versions of the Racket programming environment, for Mac OS X, Unix, and Microsoft Windows, that you can download. Racket was formerly known as DrScheme, a pedagogically oriented implementation of the scheme programming language.
• How to Design Programs is an introduction to computer programming, written by Matthias Felleisen, Robert Bruce Findler, Matthew Flatt, and Shriram Krishnamurthi, the developers of Racket (formerly, DrScheme). The full text is available online. Highly recommended!
• The syntax of the scheme programming language is concisely described in R. Kent Dybvig’s The Scheme Programming Language, second edition, Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1996. (The link should direct you to an on-line copy of the textbook.)
• The textbook Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs by Harold Abelson and Jay and Julie Sussman, is available on line. It is used as an “introductory” textbook at MIT, and is based on scheme.

Resources on Puzzles and Games:

• Jaap’s Puzzle Page.
• Mathpuzzle.com.
• Puzzle World.
• The Puzzle Museum displays the world’s oldest known mechanical puzzle.
• Michael Reid’s Rubik’s cube page.
• Aspiring speed cubers should read Lars Petrus’s Rubik’s Cube Solution.
• David Singmaster’s list of lists.
• Jerry Slocum’s, David Joyner’s, and Mario Velucchi’s Directory of Mechanical Puzzle Collectors.
• The Elliott Avedon’s Museum and Archive of Games at the University of Waterloo has over 500 pages of games, and links to interesting and historic articles about puzzles and games from around the world.
• Adrian Fisher’s World Maze Database.
• Robert Abbott’s Games and Logic Mazes.
• Tony Phillip’s page on Mazes and Mathematics.
• Resources for creating robotic mice that thread mazes can be found at the Micromouse Information Center. This site also presents alternate descriptions of Trémaux’s and Tarry’s algorithms.
• Think Labyrinth!.
• International Journal for the Study of Board Games.
• Cornell University’s Games We Play.
• Websites about manqala, oware, and bao.
• Websites for the U.S. Chess and the World Chess Federations.
• The chess variants web page.
• The game of go, the internet go server, and the American Go Association.
• Amit J. Patel’s Game Programming Information.
• The Labyrinth Society.
• The dotSphinx! game and puzzle page, which includes nim.
• A nim misère game.
• Douglas Hofstadter’s book Metamagical Themas has a title which is an anagram of “mathematical games”). It describes a plethora puzzles and games, including one chapter on nomic and another on Rubik’s cube.
• Peter Suber’s nomic web site.

Bibliography

There are many useful reference books dedicated to puzzles and games. The following is my personal list of favorites, and is certainly not complete. Many of them are in the Bailey-Howe Library. The rest are available through interlibrary loan.

Puzzles & Games:

1. Bonnie Averbach and Orin Chein, Problem Solving Through Recreational Mathematics, Dover, NY, 2000.
2. W. W. Rouse Ball and H. S. M. Coxeter, Mathematical Recreations and Essays, thirteenth edition, Dover, New York, 1987.
3. Christoph Bandelow, Inside Rubik’s Cube and Beyond, Birkhäuser, Boston, 1982.
4. John D. Beasley, The Mathematics of Games, Oxford University Press, Oxford, England, 1989.
5. John D. Beasley, The Ins and Outs of Peg Solitaire, Oxford University Press, Oxford, England, 1992.
6. Anatole Beck and Michael N. Bleicher and Donald W. Crowe, Excursions into Mathematics, Worth Publishers, Inc., New York, 1969.
7. R. C. Bell, Board and Table Games From Many Civilizations, Revised Edition, Dover, NY 1979.
8. Elwyn R. Berlekamp, The Dots and Boxes Game: Sophisticated Child’s Play, A. K. Peters, Ltd., Natick, MA, 2000.
9. Elwyn R. Berlekamp, John H. Conway and Richard K. Guy, Winning Ways for Your Mathematical Plays, Second Edition, A. K Peters, Ltd., Natick, MA Volume 1, 2001; Volume 2, 2003; Volume 3, (2003) & Volume 4, (2004), (advanced).
10. Elwyn Berlekamp and Tom Rodgers, The Mathemagician and Pied Puzzler: A Collection in Tribute to Martin Gardner, A. K. Peters, Ltd., Natick, MA, 1999.
11. Ken Binmore, Fun and Games: A Text on Game Theory, D. C. Heath and Co., Lexington, MA, 1992.
12. Cameron Browne, Hex Strategy: Making the Right Connections, A. K. Peters, Natick, MA, 2000.
13. Roger Caillois. Man, Play and Games, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, IL, 1961.
14. Stewart T. Coffin, The Puzzling World of Polyhedral Dissections, Oxford University Press, Oxford, England, 1990.
15. John H. Conway, On Numbers and Games, Second Edition, A. K. Peters, Ltd., Natick, MA, 2001 (advanced).
16. Charles Cotton, The Compleat Gamester, R. Cutler, London, 1674. Reprinted by Cornmarket Reprints, Cambridge, England, 1972.
17. Marcel Danesi, The Puzzle Instinct: The Meaning of Puzzles in Human Life, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 2004.
18. Henry Ernest Dudeney, Amusements in Mathematics, Dover, New York, 1970, (available online).
19. Henry Ernest Dudeney, The Canterbury Puzzles, Dover, New York, 1958.
20. Henry Ernest Dudeney, 536 Puzzles & Curious Problems, Scribners, New York, 1967.
21. Ross Eckler, Making the Alphabet Dance, St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1996.
22. Anthony S. Filipiak, Mathematical Puzzles and Other Brain Teasers, Bell Publishing Company, New York, 1942.
23. David B. Fogel, Blondie24: Playing at the Edge of AI, Morgan Kauffmann, San Francisco, 2001.
24. Martin Gardner, The Colossal Book of Mathematics, W. W. Norton, New York, 2001.
25. Martin Gardner, A Gardner’s Workout: Training the Mind and Entertaining the Spirit, A. K. Peters, Ltd., Natick, MA, 2001.
26. Martin Gardner, The Unexpected Hanging and Other Mathematical Diversions, The Univerisity of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 1991.
27. Martin Gardner, Hexaflexagons and Other Mathematical Diversions, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 1988.
28. Martin Gardner, The 2nd Scientific American Book of Mathematical Puzzles & Diversions, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1961.
29. Martin Gardner, New Mathematical Diversions from Scientific American, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1966.
30. Martin Gardner, Wheels, Life and Other Mathemtatical Amusements, W. J. Freeman, San Francisco, CA, 1983.
31. Solomon W. Golomb, Polyominoes, Revised Edition, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1994.
32. John Hadley and David Singmaster, ``Problems to Sharpen the Young,’’ The Mathematical Gazette, 76, 1992, pp. 102–126. This is an annotated translation of Alcuin of York’s Propositiones ad acuedos juvenes. Also available at Jstor.
33. Catherine Perry Hargrave, A History of Playing Cards, Dover, NY, 2000.
34. L. E. Hordern, ed., Hoffmann’s Puzzles Old & New, Cane End House, Reading, England, 1893 (modern reprint).
35. L. E. Hordern, Sliding Piece Puzzles, Oxford University Press, Oxford, England, 1986.
36. Jean-Marie L’Hôte, Histoire des Jeux de Soci&eacite;té, Flammarion, Paris, 1994.
37. Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens, Routledge & Kegan Paul, Ltd., London, 1950. Reprinted by The Beacon Press, Boston, 1955.
38. David Joyner, Adventures in Group Theory: Rubik’s Cube, Merlin’s Machine & Other Mathematical Toys, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD, 2002 (advanced).
39. Hermann Kern, Through the Labyrinth: Designs and Meanings over 5000 Years, Prestal, Munich, Germany, 2000.
40. Janice Kim and Jeong Soo-hyun, Learn to Play Go, Volumes 1–4, Good Move Press, Corte Madera, CA, 1997.
41. Boris A. Kordemsky, The Moscow Puzzles: 359 Mathematical Recreations, Dover, NY, 1972.
42. Sam Loyd, Cyclopedia of Puzzles, Lamb Publishing Company, New York, 1914, (available online).
43. Édouard Lucas, Récréations Mathématiques, second edition, Gautier-Villars et fils, Paris; vols. 1–4, 1882–94. Reprinted by Blanchard, Paris, 1979, (available online in French: Vol. 1, Vol. 2. Vol. 3, & Vol. 4.
44. W. H. Matthews, Mazes and Labyrinths: A General Account of Their History and Developments, Longmans, Green, and Co., London, 1922 (available online).
45. Geoffrey Mott-Smith, Mathematical Puzzles for Beginners and Enthusiasts, The Blakiston Company, Philadelphia, PA, 1946.
46. S. Brent Morris, Magic Tricks, Card Shuffling and Dynamic Computer Memories, Mathematical Association of America, Washington, D.C., 1998.
47. H. J. R. Murray, A History of Board-Games Other than Chess, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1951.
48. H. J. R. Murray, A History of Chess, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1913.
49. Richard J. Nowakowski, Games of No Chance, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 1998, (advanced).
50. Richard J. Nowakowski, More Games of No Chance, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 2002 (advanced).
51. T. H. O’Beirne, Puzzles & Paradoxes, Oxford University Press, New York, 1965.
52. David Parlett, The Oxford History of Board Games, Oxford University Press, London, 1999.
53. William Poundstone, Fortune’s Formula: The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System that Beat the Casinos and Wall Street, Hill and Wang, New York, 2005.
54. Ernö Rubik and Tamás Varga and Gerzson K&eacuteri and György Marx and Tamás Vekerdy, Rubik’s Cubic Compendium, Oxford University Press, Oxford, England, 1987.
55. Stuart Russel and Peter Norvig, Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, Second Edition, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2003.
56. Larry Russ, The Complete Mancala Games Book, Marlowe & Co., NY, 2000.
57. Arther M. Sackler Gallery, Asian Games: The Art of Contest, Asia Society, New York, 2004.
58. Sid Sackson, Card Games Around the World, Dover, NY, 1981.
59. Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman, Rules of Play, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2003.
60. Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman, ed., The Game Design Reader, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2005.
61. John Scarne, Scarne’s Encyclopedia of Card Games, Harper & Row, New York, 1983.
62. John Scarn, Scarne on Dice, Stackpole Books, Harrisburg, PA, 1974.
63. Jonathan Schaeffer, One Jump Ahead: Challenging Human Supremacy in Checkers, Springer-Verlag, New York, 1997.
64. David G. Schwartz, Roll the Bones: The History of Gambling, Gotham, 2006.
65. Jerry Slocum, The Tangram Book, Sterling Publishing, New York, 2003.
66. Jerry Slocum and Jack Botermans, Puzzles Old & New, fourth edition, University of Washington Press, Seattle, WA, 1994.
67. Jerry Slocum and Dic Sonneveld, The 15 Puzzle, Slocum Puzzle Foundation, 2006.
68. David Singmaster, Notes on Rubik’s Cube, Enslow, Hillside, NJ, 1980.
69. Claude E. Shannon, “Programming a computer for playing chess,” Philisophical Magazine, 41, 1950, pp. 256–275.
70. Raymond Smullyan, What is the Name of This Book: The Riddle of Dracula and Other Logical Puzzles, Prentice-Hall,Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1978.
71. Edward Snow, Inside Bruegel: The Play of Images in Children’s Games, North Point Press, New York, 1997.
72. Bernard Suits, The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, Canada, 1978.
73. Pieter van Delft and Jack Botermans, Creative Puzzles of the World, Abrams, Amsterdam, 1978.
74. John J. Watkins, Across the Board: The Mathematics of Chessboard Problems, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2004.
75. David Wells, The Penguin Book of Curious and Interesting Puzzles, Penguin Books, London, 1992.
76. Peter Winkler, Mathematical Puzzles: A Connoisseur’s Collection, A. K. Peters, Natick, MA, 2004.
77. David Wolfe and Tom Rodgers, Puzzler’s Tribute: A Feast for the Mind, A. K. Peters, Ltd., Natick, MA, 2002.
78. Craig Wright, The Maze and the Warrior: Symbols in Architecture, Theology, and Music, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2004.

Scheme Programming:

1. Matthias Felleisen, Robert Bruce Findler, Matthew Flatt, and Shriram Krishnamurthi, How to Design Programs: An Introduction to Programming and Computing, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2002. (Available online).
2. Daniel P. Friedman and Matthias Felleisen, The Little Schemer, MIT Press, 1996.

Writing:

1. William Strunk Jr., E.B. White, The Elements of Style, fourth edition, Allyn & Bacon, Needham Heights, MA, 1999.