With the Martin Gardner books available, I’ve been throwing the word hexaflexagon around a lot. It’s part of the title, after all.

For anyone who hasn’t ever seen one, they’re cool. I came across this video of someone flexing a hexaflexagon made from a map; one of the more interesting applications I’ve seen.

September 24, 2008

[Update] This week is over! The winner, and the current contest, will be announced here.

Today, we’ll start on the puzzles from Hexaflexagons, Probability Paradoxes, and the Tower of Hanoi. I’ll run three; that’s three more weeks of puzzle goodness.

Incidentally, don’t miss Don Albers’ lengthy interview with Gardner, updated weekly.

Last week: the final puzzle from Origami, Eleusis, and the Soma Cube. Gardner’s puzzle last week saw a bank teller inadvertently doubling a man’s withdrawal, having switched dollar and cent values. Doubling, that is, if one takes into account that pesky five-cent newspaper.

I’ve chosen a winner at random this week:

And the book goes to J. Snyder who, incidentally, correctly identified the equation as:

…a linear diophontine equation which is c + d/100 - 5/100 = 2*(d + c/100), where c=cents and d=dollars

The answer: $31.63

This week’s puzzle (a logic one, for all the philosopher-types out there) after the jump:

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