Puzzles

This page contains: algebra, assembling, lateral thinking, pictures and word puzzles.

Algebra

A popular kind of puzzles are cryptarithms (mathematical equations where the digits are replaced by symbols or letters).

Example 1:

Example 2:

  ORANGE +
   GREEN
  ------
  VIOLET           (4 solutions!)

Assembling

This includes jigsaw puzzles, tangrams, the famous Rubik's cube and other objects.

I have a page with images of my collection of Rubik's puzzles.

See also my small collection of wooden puzzles.

Lateral thinking

Also known as situation puzzles or quistels (in the Netherlands), this kind of puzzles became popular because people liked to invent and participate in detective novels à la Hercule Poirot or Sherlock Holmes.

Here are some examples from the canonical collection:

• A man comes to a hotel, then he knows that he is bankrupt.
  Hints
• A man walks into a bar and asks the bartender for a glass of water. The bartender unexpectedly pulls out a gun from behind the bar and points it at the man. The man walks out of the bar and is happy.
  Hints
• A cowboy comes to town on Friday, stays 3 days and leaves on Friday.
  Hints
• A man comes in a store; the clerk says: Four will cost you $3, Ten will cost you $6, Two-Hundred will cost $9. What is the man buying?
  Hints
• Two men enter a bar. They both order identical drinks. One lives; the other dies.
  Hints

These problems are played in a group. One player only knows the solution and presents the problem. The others must solve it, by only asking questions that can be answered with "yes" or "no" (or sometimes "irrelevant").

Picture-puzzles and word games

If you understand this one, you can solve these too:

Links:

• The Centre informatique de l'Etat - Luxembourg organized a quiz (competition with logic puzzles - in french) for its 25th anniversary.
  
  
• Marcel Cox has some pages about cryptarithms and puzzles (in french).
  
  
• The FFJM (Fédération Française de Jeux Mathématiques) organises each year since 1987 an international logic / mathematical contest for pupils and students (from primary to high school) and "Grand Public".
  
  • round 1: the candidates solve the problems at home and sent in the answers until January
  • round 2: those who qualify will participate at local centers (France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Switzerland...) in March
  • round 3: the "regional finale" is in May
  • round 4: the "international finale" in Paris is in September
  An archive of all the questions of the last years can be found at: http://www.ens-lyon.fr/~vlefevre/cijml/index_fra.html.
  
  
• Eve Astrid Andersson has some interesting puzzles of her own:
  
• Fun Game!, a puzzle in 4 steps: after you solved anagrams, logic puzzles and a cryptagram you can read and sign the author's guestbook.
• The World Wide Web Devil Game
  
  
• The picture puzzles above are taken from The Puzzler! This is an interactive internet contest, with new questions (picture-puzzles, music, TV,...) every 2 weeks.
  
  
• There is a newsgroup dedicated to puzzles: rec.puzzles, and a subgroup: rec.puzzles.crosswords
  
  The main group contains among others word-puzzles and mathematical problems. It is a usage in this group to add the word SPOILER in the subject line, if someone gives the solution to a problem.
  
  The newsgroup has a FAQ (list of frequently asked questions and answers), it is so large that it is divided in many files! They can be found at the Rec.Puzzles Archive (there also is a list of other archive sites in the world).
  

Created: 1996-12-13 , last update: 2000-01-22.

Mail: Patrick Hahn (phahn@vo.lu) ; Homepage http://www2.vo.lu/homepages/phahn/default.htm