Joseph Diez Gergonne & Chris Wasshuber – Gergonne’s Pile Problem (official PDF) Access Instantly!

Description

Joseph Gergonne, a French mathematician, read in Guyot’s Récréations physiques et mathématiques, volume III, the description of a card trick, which we today call the “27 Card Trick” (see, for example, Adamathica). He was interested enough to analyze the underlying mathematics that made it work and generalized the concept. He published his explanation and generalization in 1813 in Annales de Mathématiques pures et appliquées.

This ebook is a translation into English of the French original from 1813. Also included is the French original.

1st French edition 1813, English digital edition 2025, PDF 13 pages.
word count: 5463 which is equivalent to 21 standard pages of text