I have a strong belief that mathematics is important in our daily lives. Not the mundane
we couldn't build bridges sort of math, no, the recreational kind. I'm the only person I know who buys the Mathematics Calendar by Theoni Pappas. It features a math puzzle for each day of the year with the answer being the number of that day.
Some are really simple like what's the smallest odd prime?
Others are a tad more difficult and require one to pull up some geometry, algebra, or logic. An example would read like this: In a circle with a radius of 5 centered on the origin, construct a perpendicular upwards from the positive x axis at the point where the height generated from the axis to the circle is of length 4, dividing that radius into two parts. What is the product of the lengths of the two parts? Actually it would just be a picture of a circle with labels of 4, 5, a, and b at appropriate places with the question "What is a*b?".
Now why isn't everyone driven to figure that out?
In that spirit I offer an Alien
KenKen. It's in an unknown base with unknown symbols. Solve it using the smallest integral base.