You are participating in a holiday gift exchange with a few classmates. You each write down your own name on a slip of paper and fold it up. Then all the students place their names into a single hat.

Some say the reason most manhole covers are round is that a circle cannot fall through a smaller circular hole. Which of ...

The following is adapted from the introduction to “The Riddler: Fantastic Puzzles from FiveThirtyEight,” published by W. W. Norton & Co. It is in stores today! The world’s oldest collection of math ...

Math is not everyone’s favorite, understandably. Hours of math homework and difficult equations can make anyone sour on the subject. But when math problems are outside of a school setting, there’s no ...

Brain teaser puzzles test the reader's critical thinking and problem-solving skills by challenging them to solve a problem.

Imagine someone handing you a scrap of net from a basketball hoop, with knotted red cord attached to the netting, and telling you this bit of string is a clue in a puzzle. How quickly — if ever — ...

Two years ago, Nervous System set out to bring the jigsaw puzzle into the 21st century. Today, they’ve launched a series of puzzles designed with biomimicry software. The oldest jigsaw puzzles were ...

Jeff Smith's Math Puzzle for November 21, 2025 - ‘We fired our cannon 'til the barrel melted down, so we grabbed an alligator ...

Children who play with puzzles between ages 2 and 4 later develop better spatial skills, researchers have found. Puzzle play was found to be a significant predictor of cognition after controlling for ...

An important context for figuring out problems through reasoning is puzzle play, say researchers. Psychologists recently conducted a study that found two-four year-old children, who play with puzzles, ...