Marcel Danesi - Brain Teasers for Adults: 75 Large Print Puzzles, Riddles, and Games to Keep You on Your Toes

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Interior and Designer: Darren Samuel
Art Producer: Sue Smith
Editor: Marisa A. Hines
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Production Editor: Kurt Shulenberger

Illustrations Butcher Billy, 2019

ISBN: Print 978-1-64611-058-2 | eBook 978-1-64611-059-9

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I dedicate this book to my wonderful wife, Lucia, whom I have known and loved since 1964; my daughter Danila; and my three grandchildren, Alexander, Sarah, and Charlotte, who have made my life meaningful.

CONTENTS

Welcome to the world of brain teasers. If you are new to it, this collection will be a bit of a challenge; if you are a veteran, you will still find puzzles that you have not previously encountered. This book is a selection of brain teasers, provided in large print and designed to encourage cognitive activity while also allowing adults and seniors to battle boredom.

In an age when neuroscience has become a leading line of research in studying the brains functions, there now exists persuasive evidence suggesting that puzzles have positive effects on brain function. But above all else, puzzles are a fun, easy, and affordable way to imbue those idle moments with intrigue and challenge. The 75 puzzles included in this book will hopefully give you both pleasure and provide a challenge.

Puzzles Are Ancient

Since the dawn of history, human beings have been fascinated by riddles, enigmas, and puzzles of all kinds. The archaeological record makes it obvious that puzzles and early civilizations went hand in hand. One of the oldest known puzzles is the so-called Riddle of the Sphinx recounted in the lore of ancient Greece, with virtually identical versions in many other areas of the world, from Africa to Asia. The Sphinx was a mythological animal with the body of a winged lion and the head of a woman. It guarded a pass near the ancient city of Thebes, posing the following riddle to all those who passed by:

What creature is it who walks on four legs in the morning, on two at noon, and on three in the evening?

Those who failed to answer the Sphinxs riddle correctly were destroyed on the spot. If anyone were ever to come up with the correct answer, then the Sphinx vowed to destroy itself instead. It was the mythical hero Oedipus who finally solved itthe answer was human beings, who crawled on all fours as infants in the morning of life, then walked upright on two feet at the noon hour of life, and finally needed a canethe third footin old age, the evening of life. Answering the riddle fulfilled an ominous prophecy for Oedipusbut thats another story!

The antiquity and universality of the puzzle is unmistakable. Puzzles from the Old Babylonian period (1800 to 1600 BCE) and from ancient Egypt (1700 to 1650 BCE) have been discovered by archaeologists and historians. Riddles and mathematical puzzles of various kinds have likewise been found in the ancient civilizations of Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Puzzles are found in the writings of an impressive array of famous historical and literary personages. In the 19 th century, the writers Edgar Allan Poe (18091849) and Lewis Carroll (18321898), best known for his two great childrens novels, Alices Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass , alongside a select group of individuals devoted themselves to refining and developing the craft of puzzle-making. Among the latter, the American Sam Loyd (18411911) and the Englishman Henry E. Dudeney (18571930) stand out above others.

Puzzles Are Fun and Beneficial

The widespread popularity of puzzle magazines, brain-challenging sections in newspapers, riddle books for children and adults, TV quiz shows, game tournaments, and online sites devoted to puzzles of all kinds testifies to the allure of puzzles. The unique thinking skills developed from solving puzzles put us in a better mental position to solve important problems in school, in science, and in daily life.

Puzzles also provide enjoyment and mental fulfillment to people of all backgrounds and walks of life. We all seem to enjoy solving them for their own sake. But, unfortunately, there are many who stay away from the kind of mental gymnastics that solving puzzles entails. One reason for this, no doubt, is that they may have never had the opportunity to discover just how plain fun and rewarding puzzle-solving can be. Enjoying puzzles can also be beneficial to ones health.

An example comes from 2017, when a University of Exeter research team found that those who do word puzzles of all kinds appear to have enhanced brain functioning later in life. The team asked more than 17,000 healthy subjects age 50 and over how frequently they played word games such as crosswords. Using standard online cognitive tests to assess core aspects of brain function, the researchers found that the more regularly people engaged with language puzzles, the better they performed on tasks of attention, reasoning, and memory. The researchers claimed that those who do puzzles have a brain equivalent to 10 years younger than their actual age. It seems that language games have an important side benefit: They reduce the risk of brain deterioration through aging, or at least attenuate it. Whether or not the research can be replicated, one thing is for certainpuzzles may enhance cognitive functioning in indirect ways.