ABSTRACT
This final chapter explores mathematical problems in which a key to solution is to transform the problem into something that seems quite different. In the chapter's first puzzle, for example, the reader is introduced to a game involving billiard balls numbered 1 through 15; the two players take turns sinking balls, with the winner being the first player to sink three balls whose numbers sum to exactly 15. The game seems difficult to analyze, until it is transformed by means of a magic square to the game of Tic-Tac-Toe! In other puzzles, the reader will use the technique of transformation to carve up a cube, guess when to bet in a card game, evade an enemy armed with a laser gun, infect the cells of a cubical grid, strategize for a tournament of gladiators, and drop needles---transformed to noodles---on a grid of parallel lines. Finally, in the book's last theorem, transformation is used to compute the probability that all drivers find parking places on a one-way street.
