When I was a little boy, one of my uncles used to ask us puzzles, often not considering the age of the audience. From him, I heard puzzles like identifying the odd weight from 12 weights, breaking a 40-pound weight into four pieces so that every weight from 1 to 40 can be weighed, arranging 1000 rupees in 10 bags so that any amount from 1 to 1000 can be given by giving away certain bags, determining the initial volume of oil to be taken to the temple that gives the same amount of oil at each of its four doors so that after burning 1 liter of oil at each door we should not have any oil left etc. etc.
Initially, puzzles came in the form of questions and answers. Nobody thought about how to find the answer. After learning a little mathematics, I started to solve some of these puzzles by some systematic way. Some were solved by trial and error, but whenever I came across a method by which a puzzle could be solved systematically, I was delighted.
This delight increased when I met smarter people and watching them solve the same puzzles in a different, often more elegant, way. Different methods leading to the same solution was a really great thing to watch.
At some point, I started to collect some of the puzzles I came across with all the solutions I heard. This is that collection.
Most books on puzzles give the most elegant solutions, but I decided to keep all the solutions, because there are something to be learned from any solution, I believe.
I do not know the source of most of these puzzles. I mentioned from where I heard it first, if I remember.
The solver's name is mentioned with most of the solutions. All solutions without a solver's name mentioned are mine. However, this does not mean that they are my original solutions. Some of them are; others I read or heard somewhere and just reproduced here.
Another goal of this work is to try to find the most general solution to many popular puzzles for which we normally heard only the particular problem.
The book is divided into three volumes: