You probably won’t come up with a revised relativity theory, but at least you’ll feel pretty good about yourself once you get to the solution.

 

History of Einstein’s Puzzle

If you like riddles you may have heard of this puzzle before, as it is quite famous. Not because it was invented by Albert Einstein, actually he didn’t have anything to do with it. Lewis Carroll is sometimes referred to as the author, but such claims are also baseless.

Einstein’s Puzzle or the Zebra puzzle first appeared in print in 1963 in Life magazine. Besides being called the Zebra puzzle, it is also sometimes referred to as Einstein’s riddle, or Einstein’s problem.

 

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What is Einstein’s Puzzle

The riddle, for it’s practically a very complex riddle, is made up of 15 statements or clues about five houses and their occupants. Here are the first two clues of this puzzle.

1.There are five houses.

2. The Englishman lives in the red house.

The rest of the clues refer to the position of the houses, the nationality of their owners, the color of each house, the cigarettes and drinks they prefer and the sort of pets they keep. You have to answer to questions – who owns a zebra and who drinks water.

 

How to Solve Einstein’s Puzzle

What you need are good detective skills. You ca start by simply drawing five houses and listing what attributes you can be certain of under each of them. You need to read carefully all the statements and see which are clear facts and which clues require further deductions and inferences. For instance, clue number 10 says that

The Norwegian lives in the first house. You have something tangible to write under the first house in your drawing – that’s where the Norwegian guy lives.

There are those who point out the riddle doesn’t say if it’s the first house from the right or the left, but that doesn’t affect the solution.

At least now you have something to work with. For instance you know the first house cannot be red because its owner is Norwegian, not English. And so on. Make sure you write any deductions in pencil and have a good eraser at hand.

Over time there have been many versions of this riddle, but they only differ in attributes like the brands of cigarettes mentioned or the drinks. The principle is the same though.

 

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What would happen if you had not two, but eight queens on a chess board?

 

How to Solve the Eight Queens Puzzle

Solving this puzzle requires not only basic knowledge of chess rules but also mathematics.

The original Eight Queens Puzzle refers to placing the eight chess pieces on a 8×8 board, making sure that no queen threatens another one. As you probably know the queen can move any numbers of unoccupied squares in any direction – horizontally, vertically or diagonally. It is obvious that, in order to solve the puzzle, no two queens can occupy the same row, column or diagonal.

In theory, the number of ways you can place the eight pieces on an 8×8 board is huge, 4,426,165,368, to be exact. You don’t have to go through all of them to find one of the 92 solutions to the puzzle.

 

Since such puzzles are meant to be fun, better forget about math and just look at the board. One thing you know from start is that there has to be only one queen to each row or column and you work your way to a solution from here.

 

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History of the Eight Queens Puzzle

This fiendish puzzle was invented in 1848 by Max Bezzel, a German chess enthusiast who created many chess problems. Two years later, Franz Nauck came up with several solutions and also invented the n queens problem. This refers to placing an n number of queens on an nxn board, thus offering the possibility of playing the same game on a larger or smaller board.

 

Chess Puzzle Variants

If you like this brain-racking puzzle, you should try one of its variants that use other chess pieces, knights, bishops, kings and even rooks. The easiest to solve is the version with knights. Since knights move in an L shape they always land on a square of the opposite color. A simple solution to prevent them from attacking each other is to place all the knights on squares of the same color and it doesn’t even matter where you place them.

Other versions allow for two different types of pieces to be used, like queens and pawns or knights, the goal being the same – keeping the peace on the board.

 

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Also known as entanglement puzzles, these are more than simple toys (How to solve video below).

 

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Types of Disentanglement Puzzles

There are many version of this popular toy and all have a common goal, trying to disentangle an element, like a ring, from the loops or plate it seems firmly attached to.

Wire and string puzzles

The string can be made of a string or a ribbon and there are various elements attached to it. The toy also has at least one stiff wire, but some also have a ball though which the string is threaded.

You usually have to detach the string from the wire. The loop the string makes can be closed, which makes the puzzle seem impossible to solve, or the loop can be open, but the string has balls or wooden elements to prevent it from slipping.

One famous example in this category is the Boomhower puzzle, notoriously difficult to solve. Subsequent variants use the Boomhower idea and consist of one or two vertical beams on a wood support with various elements attached to them.

Plate and rings puzzles

All the pieces are usually made of metal and the goal is to detach the ring from the plate. Typically, the plate will have holes or indentations, some meant to help you, some to make your task more challenging.

Wire puzzles

Sometimes referred to as nail puzzles, these puzzles are made from stiff pieces of wire in various shapes, forming closed or open loops, that you need to disentangle.

As complicated as disentangling such crazily linked pieces, putting it back together can be even harder, but that is also part of the game.

Possibly Impossible

While most disentanglement puzzles take some time and a lot of effort to solve, there are some that are actually unsolvable. Should anyone ever challenge you to solve the “Notorious Figure Eight Puzzle” stay away from it. The puzzle created by Stewart Coffin in 1974 looks deceptively simple, like the figure 8 with a loop string attached to it. Many people have tried in vain to solve it, mathematicians have also looked into it and came up with the conclusion it is unsolvable, which is why it is sometimes referred to as the Possibly Impossibly puzzle.

 

Watch Video Below

 

 

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Good for sending secret messages to your loved one as well as to encrypt sensitive military information.

 

How to Solve Cryptogram Puzzles

A Cryptogram is basically a row made up of lines of empty cells that stand for words. Under each cell there is a certain letter or number. The aim of the puzzle is to understand what letter each of the letters or numbers in the printed cryptogram stands for. These are called substitution cryptograms, meaning that a letter (or number) substitutes for another letter. If you want to use cryptograms to communicate with someone both of you will have the key, but as a puzzle you have to use logic to find the key.

The first step in solving a cryptogram is looking at one letter words, if any. In English, only I and A form one letter words, so you already have an important clue. Also, you need to check for double letters (OO, SS, etc) and spot id there are any apostrophes. Another important part is looking at three-letter words, as in English the most common are AND and THE. No letter can substitute for itself.

 

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History of Cryptogram Puzzles

Using a cypher to encode a message dates back many centuries, if not more. It is believed cryptograms were invented by monks for entertainment purposes. The oldest known reference to the use of cryptograms can be found in a manuscript dating from the 9^th century.  A manuscript discovered at Bamberg, in modern Germany,  mentions the fact that that Irish visitors to the court of Merfyn Frych ap Gwriad (died 844), who reigned over Gwynedd in Wales were presented with a cryptogram which could only be solved by transposing the letters from Latin into Greek.

In modern times, Edgar Allan Poe used cryptograms in some of his works and as a magazine editor he often asked readers to submit their own cyphers, which he would then publish, challenging the public to come up with the solution.

The infamous Zodiac Killer also used cryptograms in messages meant to taunt the police. Only one of the four messages has been solved to this day.

A version of this traditional puzzle very popular today is the CryptoQuiz which is a themed puzzle, and all the words fall in the same category.

 

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One of the most popular puzzles of all times to test your knowledge and skill at guessing words.

 

How to Solve Crossword Puzzles

A crossword puzzle is a square or rectangular grid you must fill in with words or sometimes phrases, based on the clues you are given for the horizontal and vertical lines. The end to a word is marked by a black cell. When you think you know the answer to a clue, let’s say in a vertical line, check how each letter affects the solutions to the horizontal lines it crosses.

Many crosswords are themed so most of the clues refer to a certain topic – music, literature, geography, TV shows, sports etc.

 

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Versions of Crossword Puzzles

Straight Clues

The most basic, and most popular, variant of crossword puzzle is that in which the clues are straightforward. An example of straight clue reads like ‘The capital of France’, with the obvious solution – PARIS. The clues must be consistent with the time of the verb, distinguishing between present and past, and must indicate if a noun is in the single or plural form.

Indirect clues

Indirect clues involve lateral thinking rather than a direct answer. For instance, ‘Start of spring’ could mean MAR (as in March) or ESS the way you spell S, the first letter in the word spring.

Cryptic clues

Puzzles for crossword aficionados tend to have very challenging cryptic clues, Basically, the clue itself is a puzzle you must figure out before filling in the solution to the crossword puzzles. Anagrams are sometimes used as clues, and the rule is to indicate that in the clue, but they are easier to understand than other cryptic clues.

One type of cryptic clues refers to words that can have more than one meaning. The solution to a cryptic clue like‘Cat’s tongue’ is PERSIAN, as it’s a type of cat, but also a language or tongue.

Sometimes, the list of clues includes cross-referencing, which means that the clue for a certain word points to another clue you need to guess.

If the solution to a clue is a hyphenated word, the clue might indicate the number of letters in the two words linked together.

 

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Crossword puzzle meets Sudoku, that’s the easiest way to explain Kakuro.

 

How to Solve Kakuro Puzzles

First, let’s have a look at what Kakuro puzzles look like. The traditional version is a 16×16 grid, filled with white cells divided by black cells. A line of white cells is called an entry.

In a crossword puzzle you have the cues listed on the side, but in Cross Sums your clues are numbers and are printed on the black cells that form the top row and the the leftmost column. If the clue is, say, 7 the numbers in the solution must add up to 7. You can use any number from 1 to 9 to arrive at a sum, which represents the solution to an entry. You are not allowed to use the same digit twice in the same line.

Each line or entry has to contain at least two digits, while the longest possible line has nine cells, so you have to use all the numbers from 1 to 9.

Some version have an added constraint, the rule being that you cannot have the same combination used twice in a grid. For instance, if you have 7 as a clue twice, you cannot use 4+3 in both cases.

 

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Tricks to help you with the Kakuro Puzzle

Guessing is not a good strategy to solve a Cross Sums puzzle, you have to use logic, make deductions as to the digits you should input by considering their position both in the horizontal and the vertical clues.

Start by looking at the shortest entries, preferably those with two cells. Also, see if there are any 3 or 4 clues. If you have 3 as a clue, the only possible answer is 1 plus 2. When the clue is 4, the answer can only be 1+3, as you cannot duplicate the twos in 2+2. Even higher sums can be easy to solve. If you have to use two digits to add up to 17, those two digits can only be 8 and 9, and you have to decide where each of them fits best.

 

History of Kakuro Puzzles

In Japan, these puzzles are almost as popular as Sudoku and the name Kakuro means addition cross. In the Western part of the world, the term Cross Sums was coined in 1966 by Canadian Jacob Funk, but today most publications use the term Kakuro.

 

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Playing with sliding wood blocks, what could be more fun? Well, if it’s a Burr puzzle you’re in for so

me head-scratching.

 

How to Solve Burr Puzzles

This popular game belongs in the interlocking puzzles category and they all use the same basic idea. The set consists of six (or more) notched sticks, or little pieces of wood which the player must use to recreate a certain shape.

 

The most popular interlocking puzzle is the 6-piece burr, also known as “Puzzle Knot” or “Chinese Cross”. The aim is to slide and lock the 6 sticks into position to form some sort of a cross. Some variants of the game have a so-called key, an unnotched piece which can easily slide in and out.

No matter what shape you need to replicate, the notches on the pieces fall on the inside, where they cannot be seen, leaving the outer surface smooth and quite puzzling as it is impossible to tell how the sticks fit together. In fact, taking apart such puzzles is as challenging as creating the required shape.

There are two main types of such puzzles – Solid Burr puzzles which don’t have any voids or empty spaces inside, and Holey Burrs which have at least one empty space inside, usually not visible from the outside.

 

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Burr Puzzle Variants

The Altekruse puzzle consists of 12 identical pieces and in order to take it apart the two halves of the puzzle have to be moved in opposite directions. Versions of the Altekruse puzzle can have 6, 24, or 36 pieces.

The Chuck puzzle differs from other Burr puzzles because it consists mostly of U-shaped pieces of various lengths. Some of the sticks have an extra notch ande are used as key pieces.

Another version of the classical Burr puzzle is the Pagoda, also known as “Japanese Crystal”. The smallest version, Pagoda 1, has only three sticks and does not even require notches to be assembled or taken apart. A Pagoda of size 2 has 9 pieces, while bigger variants come in sets with 19, 33, 51 or even more pieces. This might seem a bit complicated but, the truth is once you understand how the pieces fit together it’s easy to assemble the puzzle.

Diagonal Burr puzzles present an interesting variation. The notches on the pieces are not square as in the classical Burr puzzles, but diagonal, which changes the way the pieces slide against each other.

 

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