aha! Gotcha

Paradoxes to puzzle and delight

Martin Gardner

Contents

Preface

1. Logic. Paradoxes about truth-tellers, liars, crocodiles, and barbers.

   The Liar Paradox
   Buttons and Graffiti
   A Sentence and Its Opposite
   The Crazy Computer
   Infinite Regress
   The Plato-Socrates Paradox
   Alice and the Red King
   Crocodile and Baby
   The Don Quixote Paradox
   The Barber Paradox
   Astrologer, Robot, and Catalog
   Dull Versus Interesting
   Semantics and Set Theory
   Metalanguages
   Theory of Types
   The Swami's Prediction
   The Unexpected Tiger
   Newcomb's Paradox
   

2. Number. Paradoxes about integers, fractions, and an infinite ladder

   The Six-Chair Mystery
   The Elusive Profit
   Population Implosion
   The Ubiquitous Number 9
   The Bewildered Bus Driver
   The Missing Dollar
   Magic Matrix
   The Curious Will
   The Amazing Code
   Hotel Infinity
   The Ladder of Alephs
   

3. Geometry. Paradoxes about plane, solid, and impossible shapes

   Getting Around a Girl
   The Great Moon Mystery
   Mirror Magic
   Cubes and Ladies
   Randi's Remarkable Rugs
   The Vanishing Leprechaun
   The Great Bank Swindle
   The Amazing Inside-Out Doughnut
   The Bewildering Braid
   The Inescapable Point
   Impossible Objects
   A Pathological Curve
   The Unknown Universe
   Antimatter
   

4. Probability. Paradoxes about chance, wagers, and belie

   The Gambler's Fallacy
   Four Kittens
   Three-Card Swindle
   The Elevator Paradox
   The Bewildered Girlfriends
   Three-Shell Game
   Chuck-A-Luck
   Puzzling Parrots
   The Wallet Game
   The Principle of Indifference
   Pascal's Wager
   

5. Statistics. Paradoxes about gismos, clumps, ravens, and grue

   The Deceptive "Average"
   Mother of the Year
   Jumping to Conclusions
   The Small-World Paradox
   What's Your Sign?
   Patterns in Pi
   Jason and the Sun
   Crazy Clumps
   An Amazing Card Trick
   The Voting Paradox
   Miss Lonelyhearts
   Hempel's Ravens
   Goodman's Grue
   

6. Time. Paradoxes about motion, supertasks, time and reversed time

   Carroll's Crazy Clocks
   The Perplexing Wheel
   The Frustrated Skier
   Zeno's Paradoxes
   The Rubber Rope
   Supertasks
   Mary, Tom, and Fido
   Can Time Go Backward?
   Time Machines
   The Tachyon Telephone
   Parallel Worlds
   Time Dilation
   Fate, Chance, and Free Will
   

References and Suggested Readings

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