I love math puzzles, and Henry Ernest Dudeney is the foremost puzzlemeister of all time.
Whenever I need a diversion from the pressing day-to-day busyness of life, I like to crack open one of his books. And get humbled. He stumps me as often as not, but I enjoy the challenge.
Today, I’ve got two of his somewhat-easier puzzles from Amusements in Mathematics, dealing with the probability of obsolete coins tossed or pulled from a bag.
Okay, so the penny isn’t obsolete quite yet, even though the US government quit making them. But the “penny” in these puzzles is the old British pence, which went out of date seemingly ages ago, along with all the other non-decimal coins that made old math puzzles so confusing.
Probability puzzles are great for middle school students because the arithmetic itself is simple. The challenge is in figuring out exactly what calculation to do.
Have fun playing math with your kids!
