Question: Can you
help me with this puzzle. I've spent many hours with no luck. Arrange the
numbers l to l6 in a four by four square so that each row and each column
and the two main diagonals add up to 34. Good luck - is there a secret to
these puzzles that I am not aware of - or is it just trial and error.
Thanks!!!
John H.
Answer:
There are 880 Magic squares 4x4. Actually a fundamental set consists of
220 squares, but by means of certain transformations four different
squares can be produced from each fundamental one. All 880 magic squares
are presented
here.
But, please, bear in mind, John gave the puzzle one more try and
successfully solved it before visiting that page (at least we hope so).
Thus, we would like to recommend you not to hurry up with looking into the
solutions before you try the puzzle first. It's our strong belief you can
solve it without any specific outside help!
Question: I found a
puzzle game called death by diet mystery puzzle but it does not have the
directions with it. Have you ever heard of it and where can I find the
directions for it? The box says it is the division of Lombard Marketing
from West Hartfor, CT. Thank-you for any help you can give me.
Dennis B.
Answer:
Since this is Death by Diet, we guess the division of Lombard Marketing
producing this jigsaw puzzle mystery is Bepuzzled. In this case it is
better to contact University Games Corporation - they acquired Bepuzzled
from Lombard Marketing, Inc. in 1999. University Games can be visited
online at
www.universitygames.com and their contact information is
provided
here.
Question: Help, I
was playing with your halloween shape puzzle and wanted to share it with a
friend and can not find it now.
Linda
Answer:
There are several Halloween puzzles on our site coming from different
years. They all are presented in
Our Collection of
Puzzle Club. The puzzles are:
Question: My
son-in-law recently found this puzzle that was his grandmother's. He
remembers working on it for hours as a little boy. Do you have or know
where I can find the solution. I would be a hit as a mother - in- law if I
could find this for him. Thank you
Virginia H.
Answer: This
puzzle is an old classic sliding block puzzle known under some other
names, for example such as Penant Puzzle. The puzzle has a 59-move
solution. You can find it
here or
here.
And an illustrative solution to it can be found
here.
Question: Am
interested in purchasing a puzzle -map of US with names of each state on
indiv puzzle peice rep. U.S. perhaps each state in different color. Advise.
D. J.
Answer: The
potential candidates for the answer to your puzzle request can be found at
(some of them are the same, except for the different locations):
Simultaneously this is our sixth Mini-Contest with the
PuzzlePLAYGROUND sector. The names of the solvers who submit the
correct solutions to this puzzle (when the contest is complete) will be
presented within the Puzzle Help sector too.
Now we invite you to the
PuzzlePLAYGROUND sector to take part in Mini-Contest 27.
This is our 26th Mini-Contest and the
2nd
one in the new series starting from the previous 25th
Mini-Contest.
Simultaneously this is our sixth Mini-Contest with the
PuzzlePLAYGROUND sector. The names of the solvers who submit the
correct solutions to this puzzle (when the contest is complete) will be
presented within the Puzzle Help sector too.
Now we invite you to the
PuzzlePLAYGROUND sector to take part in Mini-Contest 26.
Question: Hi,
I came across some puzzles that I really enjoyed. I challenge my staff
with them. Could you help me find more &/or what the type/name of these
puzzles are?
Here is an example -
G.I
= G.I's over seas
cccc
Black
= Black over coat
coat
BloCuse
= sees through blouse
Looking forward to your response.
Louise E..
Question: we are trying to find the name of a
certain word puzzle and are having no luck at all.
It's the kind where there are pictures and words and it makes a sentence
or paragraph like an eyeball means the letter "I" or a picture of a cup w/
a -c next to it would be "up"
do you know what they are called?
thanks.
Answer: As
usual a puzzle like that is called rebus.
More information on these puzzles as well as lots of their examples can be
found at:
Before presenting puzzles you should first make sure the solutions are
actually possible. eg the five coins solution is nonsense and therefore i
am unable to take your website seriously as a consequence. Thanks for
wasting my time, though it didn't take me long to realize that it could
not be done.
J. J.
Answer: This puzzle is one of the classic puzzles of its kind. It is quite old
puzzle and the goal lies in the fact what is the possible model for such a
construction, even unstable. We do agree with you that it is very hard to
arrange the coins into that construction without any outside support for
it.
Please, don't be disappointed and don't take all the puzzles as the strict
mathematical models available to be built in real world. After all the
Puzzle World is meant to bring in some fun and stimulate solvers think is
some non-standard directions. *smile*
Question: I was searching the net when i found green to brown and thought why not
green to grass. So with some time and help from
www.dictionary.com, i got
this list!
green
greet
great
groat
groan
grown
brown
brows
grows
gross
grass
Hope you use it!
Sincerely,
Dustin
Answer: Such puzzles where you have to change one word to another by altering
single letters at each step are usually called Doublets (or sometimes Word
Ladders). The puzzles themselves were invented by Lewis Carroll more then
a century ago. It is really very difficult to find the shortest solutions
to such puzzles by hand. As usual today they are found by computers.
There was GRASS to GREEN doublet was proposed by Carroll at that time as
well. The shortest known solution to it was found decades later with help
of computer:
grass
crass
cress
tress
trees
treed
greed
green
That's why any solution to doublets found by hand (even a little bit
longer than that found with help of computer) is very appreciated. Thanks.
More information on these puzzles you can find in A Gardner's Workout:
Training the Mind and Entertaining the Spirit by Martin Gardner. By the
way, we also have several examples of these puzzles included into our
PuzzlePLAYGROUND -
Doublets.
Tilt 3L jug diagonally and fill from corner to corner will equal l l/2 L.
Then tilt 5L jug and fill from corner to corner will equal 2 l/2L.
Pour l l/2 L into 5L jug which has 2 l/2 L to equal 4L.
Joe Zacharr
Question: In the problem involving obtaining 4 liters using two bottles... (1 is 3
liters, the other 5)... the quickest to obtain the goal is to fill both
bottles and pour out one half of each. This would leave 1.5 in the 3 liter
bottle and 2.5 in the 5 liter bottle. Then pour the contents of the 3
liter bottle into the larger bottle. That's 4 liters and it is much faster
than the steps given.
Melanie Gretzinger
Answer: The
most difficult thing in Melanie's solution is to figure out how to get
exactly one half in each container or bottle (there are no any measures on
the container except the fact we know about their overall capacity)? Joe's
solution explains it, but in this case we have to use containers of a
certain shape.
Thus, to perform the solution described by Melanie and Joe, we need a
little bit special containers which would allow us to fill exactly one
half in each of them. Two such containers are shown in the illustration.
As soon as water level coincides with the diagonal plane which divides the
container in two halves, we can conclude that the water left in the
container is exactly one half of its capacity.
