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Murderous Maths: Guaranteed to Bend Your Brain

Here is Max's review:

I thought that Murderous Maths was a great book. It is short, but packed with information. The book starts out by talking about the basics of math (+, -, =, x, -:-). Then, Murderous Maths moves on to discuss things like time, short cuts for problems, Roman numerals, calculators, time, clocks, right angles, the invention of nothing, mathematicians, and the magic square. Eventually the author talks a little bit about algebra and why it is useful. What I think I liked the best was the way the author put in little humorous anecdotes so as to keep your interest.
Here are 2 examples of problems from the book:

(1) If you have 1 bacteria particle, and if it multiplies 2 times every ten minutes, how many will you have in 24 hours? Answer: 22,300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (a lot).
(2) You are locked in a bathroom with a fungus crawling toward you shooting deadly spores at you!!! You have a set quantity of different shaped sets of tiles in the room with you, but which set can cover the whole fungus without any spores left uncovered to fire at you?

As you can see, the problems in this book are strange and unusual, but the author uses common everyday mathematics to solve them. I think that this was a very enjoyable math book and recommend it to anyone who wants a fun read.
Max, age 12, reviewed 5/18/04.

Murderous Maths: Guaranteed to Mash Your Mind

Here is Troy's review:

More Murderous Maths is more of the above, it differs only in that the art gets a little less sketchy, and the writer realizes that he's going to be doing an entire series and, therefore, brings up many topics that will be in later books in detail.

The front cover cartoon shows three men in prison, and one of them says, "So, if it takes 10 men 6 years to dig a tunnel using spades, how long will it take us 3 using this plastic spoon?" The entire book is packed with that kind of thing. The only way for this math to become murderous is for you to die laughing. It goes through geometry, critical thinking, volume, dimensions, measurements, impossible shapes, percentages and interest, speeds, etc, etc, etc. Compared to the first book, this book is a 10. I rate the first book a 7 out of 10 because the cartoons aren't as funny and the math is more boring (plus the evil Gollark aliens don't make their appearance until the 2nd book).

Murderous Maths - Awesome Arithmetricks

Description below taken from the author's site at: http://www.murderousmaths.co.uk/books/BKMM3.htm

Murderous Maths - The Mean and Vulgar Bits: Fractions and Averages

There's a warning inside this book that says "Any book with the word 'Murderous' on the front is not going to have lots of nice stories about flower arranging, handy hairstyling hints or recipes for fairy cakes in it. If a book is called the Mean and Vulgar Bits, don't be surprised if you find some mean and vulgar bits inside. Remember that the word 'bottom' has two meanings and in here it is necessary to encounter both of them."

You are introduced to the very vulgar fractions in cartoons where the little fractions are "sniggering" at the big fractions who are pulling pranks. in defining the numerator and the denominator, you encounter one of the uses of the word "bottom" as the denominator's gleefully shout the word across the page.

Then you are introduced to the gangsters, which are in, by the way, every book. They are trying to learn how to divide 3,000 BP between seven people. The reason the math is murderous is because as they are fighting over the last odd cent, they accidentally knock over a candle, which burns the money, which in turn starts to burn the oil reserves next to the table. The gangsters get out in time, but the shack they were hiding out in isn't so lucky.

Murderous Maths - Do You Feel Lucky?

Then there's the coin toss with Professor Fiendish, your arch-nemesis. He offers you the chance to win a coin toss, toss 6 coins, win 60 pence (this is a British book remember). Using Pascal's triangle, you figure out that the probability of you getting all heads is more than one in 60. The Professor's electric meter runs on coins. How do you run him out of coins for his electric meter so that you can escape from his electrified titanium tent? The answer is, look at Pascal's triangle! By losing one coin at a time, you raise your chances of winning. Eventually you run the Professor out of coins, and you're able to walk outside, your pockets full of pence (money).

Then there's the probability of winning a million British pounds by tossing 3 coins in the air, waking somebody up and saying "I will bet you that if I toss these three coins in the air, at least 2 of them will land the same way!" If they take your bet, it's a sure thing you're going to win. Try it!

This books also goes through interesting numbers, such as the probability of winning the national lottery jackpot is one in 13,983,816. So winning the jackpot is actually easier than throwing 24 straight heads on 24 coins.

Murderous Maths - Savage Shapes

From the book: "Suppose there's 2 flies that are absolutely bugging you. You could borrow a laser beam that fires a very thin beam of light in a straight line. Using the laser beam, you could bore a hole in both flies at the same time, provided you pointed it in exactly the right direction." That is the first dimension.

Murderous Maths - Numbers, the Key to the Universe

It also goes over Fermat's Last Theorem, Euler, and other historical figures, and of course, the gangsters are in this book. Part of this book which is the funniest part in my opinion, is the classic riddle of the missing cent. Get the book to find out what that is.

Murderous Maths - The Phantom X

It talks about the importance of positives and negatives, and the Phantom X (who looks almost exactly like Zorro) teaches you the five rules for adjusting equations. Interesting though is that the only thing it goes over is algebra (all the other books cover more than one subject), it's just different from the other books.

Here is the famous Diophantus riddle (Diophantus is considered the father of algebra): "Diophantus' youth lasted one-sixth of his life. He grew a beard after one-twelfth of his life, then after one-seventh more Diophantus married. Five years later he had a son who lived exactly half as long as his father. Diophantus died 4 years after his son." You may be able to do this, but I suggest you get the book to help you solve it!

It talks about how many numbers will fit into brackets, and how many brackets are allowed. And then it talks about your "algebra panic button" - "If you get stuck on an algebra problem, you reach under the desk and push the secret panic button! The curtains around your room will automatically close, an electronic sweeper will check for bugging devices, and the door will lock itself. When the system has verified that everything is secure, the picture of your great, great aunt Marina on the wall will slide open revealing a panel with a formula on it." I can't put the formula in because . . . I can't, it looks pretty hairy, but it has the power to solve almost any equation.

The whole point of the book is to get the idea across that trigonometry is not as scary as it's hyped up to be. It succeeded in this, in my opinion. I understand what these functions do on my calculator, and I understand where to use them. You do have to understand the basics of beginning algebra, it helps to understand some geometry as it relates to triangles, and you need a good calculator, one that won't blow up (even though Poskitt has you do calculations that will make an inferior calculator possibly blow up!)

It has the usual MM gangsters, Riverboat Lil and Brett Shuffler, the evil gollarks, and it also introduces three new super heros, SuperSine, CosineGirl (CosGirl), and TanDog, for this particular book.

The funniest part in the book is definitely the end, which I won't spoil, but I will say that it is very unexpected, and you have to read the whole book in order to get it, so no peeking ahead. Also, be sure not to skip the MM Geometry Set self-assessment test in the beginning. Go for points! I scored zero, I used my calculator the whole time.

Overall the book was very good, and had me keeping my mom up until 10:30 p.m. figuring out the end-of-the-book problem. I rate it an 8 out of 10. Definitely for higher grade levels than the earlier books, I'd say middle school on up.

Murderous Maths - The Perfect Sausage by Kjartan Postkitt,

This book surprised me. I was not expecting all the formulas in here to turn up. Like the formula for why the Gollarks will be able to interpret with the Ploogs because the Ploogs can't understand them, so they need an interpreter who can speak both of their languages, and it goes on . . . They finally decide that they ended up needing over 1,000 interpreters just to get everybody to understand each other. The comics are hillarious. They end up all getting blown up and finally talking the same language as they scream "ARGHHH!"

Then we have formulas for pizzas, how to divide a crescent into three pieces with only one cut, how to divide a crescent into 6 pieces with only 2 cuts (hint, they are not all the same size) and why the pure mathematicians are probably on the wanted list forever.

Then we get into formulas for gravitational attraction of Pongo and Veronica (don't worry, it's G-rated). These include Einstein and Newton's famous formulas. Then there is money - formulas to figure out percentage markups to make 50% profit on resale. Then it goes backwards - they paid me this, how much did it cost me? It's all in English currency but who cares, the math is the same whatever currency you use as long as it's decimal based!
There are formulas for calendar algorithms, like what day your birthday fell upon. There are geometric formulas, like how to figure out the longest diagonal in irregular and regular figures. Hint: Once you get to a certain number of sides, use your ruler!
It covers sines, cosines and tangents, but not with the trig superheros this time. MM decided it was impossible to figure the area of a trapezoid without knowing the height. It IS possible, but there's only 3 known formulas for it - one includes 8 different variables, and another includes SEVEN LAYERS of imbedded brackets. Very scary - if you don't know what that is, this is an example of just three imbeddings:

{#- [%+(x-3)]-Z}

See? Spookyyyy . . .

And there's still more. The phases of the moon (and its affect on a were-sausage, whoo-ooooh!) are demonstrated in a formula, Archimedes makes another appearance in this book with his discovery of the formula for the volume of a sphere in a cylinder, and pure mathematicians LOVE pi squared :o)

Near the end, we have - At Last! The Tragic Tale of The Perfect Sausage. No spoilers posted here, but it truly is tragic! The final comic I won't spoil either, but it's VERY funny.

I rate this book, easily, a 9 out of 10. A little of it was over my head, but I liked it anyway. I recommend this book again for middle school on up. Because it goes through a lot of formulas, it takes a while to figure out. There's a lot of vocabulary you probably never saw, but he does explain it.

Professor Fiendish's Brain Benders by Kjartan Postkitt - (Author's annotation used with permission) - Har har! They begged, they pleaded, they groveled, and finally they BRIBED me - so here it is at last... my very own masterpiece.
"...even though it's only the first book the Professor has written, it's definitely his best yet..."

Regular Murderous Maths readers will already know how my appearances in the books add a vital touch of glamour and sophistication to the proceedings. But now I've decided to treat the world to a selection of my absolute dead favorite puzzles and teasers. It's a lot better than the other books because it has loads of pictures of me in it.

I've split the book into three sections:

DEVIOUS BRAINBENDERS you might manage to solve a few of these.
DRASTIC BRAINBENDERS if you solve any of these then you can call yourself a genius.
DIABOLICAL BRAINBENDERS you won't get any of these right, I only put them in to show how clever I am. Don't even think of trying these or your head will melt. Har har!

It isn't just maths stuff either. It's got logic puzzles, coin challenges, paper cutting, mazes and tricks to try on your friends. But most of all it's ... EDUCATIONAL. Well of course it is. For instance:

● Did you know that if you mash up worms and slugs and boil them with washing powder it looks like sponge cake?
● It gave me a great idea for a diabolical trick to play at the Fogsworth Manor tea party. Unfortunately it went a bit wrong...
● Mind you, nothing tastes as revolting as what Pongo McWhiffy tries to sell from his burger bar!
● I even took pity on the lesser Murderous Maths characters and let them appear occasionally. I just made sure that I didn't play cards with Riverboat Lil! Luckily she explains to us how she always wins.
● There are even a few games you can try yourself, although I wouldn't recommend "Pass The Poison"...
● And as a special treat, I invite you into my secret network of underground tunnels, although I bet you'll never find your way out again!

Note: Professor Fiendish's Brain Benders has more text and more of a storyline than the Kakuro and Sudoku books below.