Mechanical puzzle
Encyclopedia
A mechanical puzzle is a puzzle
presented as a set of mechanically interlinked pieces.
and appeared in the 3rd century BC.
The game consists of a square divided into 14 parts, and the aim was to create different shapes from these pieces. This is not easy to do. (see Ostomachion
loculus Archimedius)
In Iran
“puzzle-locks” were made as early as the 17th century AD.
The next known occurrence of puzzles is in Japan
. In 1742 there is a mention of a game called “Sei Shona-gon Chie No-Ita” in a book. Around the year 1800 the Tangram
puzzle from China
became popular, and 20 years later it had spread through Europe and America.
The company Richter from Rudolstadt
began producing large amounts of Tangram-like puzzles of different shapes, the so-called “Anker-puzzles”.
In 1893 professor Hoffman wrote a book called Puzzles; Old and New. It contained, amongst other things, more than 40 descriptions of puzzles with secret opening mechanisms. This book grew into a reference work for puzzle games and modern copies exist for those interested.
The beginning of the 20th century was a time in which puzzles were greatly fashionable and the first patents for puzzles were recorded. The puzzle shown in the picture, made of 12 identical pieces by W. Altekruse in the year 1890, was an example of this.
With the invention of modern polymer
s manufacture of many puzzles became easier and cheaper.
In this category, the puzzle is present in component form, and the aim is to produce a certain shape. The Soma cube
made by Piet Hein
, the Pentomino
by Solomon Golomb and the aforementioned laying puzzles Tangram
and “Anker-puzzles” are all examples of this type of puzzle.
Furthermore, problems in which a number of pieces have to be arranged so as to fit into a (seemingly too small) box are also classed in this category.
The image shows a variant of Hoffman's packing problem. The aim is to pack 27 cuboid
s with side lengths A, B, C into a box of side length A+B+C, subject to two constraints:
One possibility would be A=18, B=20, C=22 – the box would then have to have the dimensions 60×60×60.
Modern tools such as laser cutters
allow the creation of complex 2 dimensional puzzles made of wood or acrylic plastic. In recent times this has become predominant and puzzles of extraordinarily decorative geometry have been designed. This makes use of the multitude of ways of subdividing areas into repeating shapes
.
Computers aid in the design of new puzzles. A computer allows an exhaustive search for solution – with its help a puzzle may be designed in such a way that it has the fewest possible solutions, or a solution requiring the most steps possible. The consequence is that solving the puzzle can be very difficult.
The use of transparent materials enables the creation of puzzles, in which pieces have to be stacked on top of each other. The aim is to create a specific pattern, image or colour scheme in the solution.
For example, one puzzle consists of several discs in which angular sections of varying sizes are differently coloured. The discs have to be stacked so as to create a colour circle (red->blue->green->red) around the discs.
The puzzles in this category are usually solved by opening or dividing them into pieces. This includes those puzzles with secret opening mechanisms, which are to be opened by trial and error
. Furthermore, puzzles consisting of several metal pieces linked together in some fashion are also considered part of this category.
The two puzzles shown in the picture are especially good for social gatherings, since they appear to be very easily taken apart, but in reality many people cannot solve this puzzle. The problem here lies in the shape of the interlocking pieces — the mating surfaces are tapered, and thus can only be removed in one direction. However, each piece has two oppositely sloping tapers mating with the two adjoining pieces so that the piece cannot be removed in either direction.
Boxes called secret boxes or puzzle box
es with secret opening mechanisms extremely popular in Japan, are included in this category. These caskets contain more or less complex, usually invisible opening mechanisms which reveal a small hollow space on opening. There is a vast variety of opening mechanisms, such as hardly visible panels which need to be shifted, inclination mechanisms, magnetic locks, movable pins which need to be rotated into a certain position up and even time lock
s in which an object has to be held in a given position until a liquid has filled up a certain container.
In an interlocking puzzle, one or more pieces hold the rest together, or the pieces are mutually self-sustaining. The aim is to completely disassemble and then reassemble the puzzle. Examples of these are the well-known Chinese wood knots.
Both assembly and disassembly can be difficult – contrary to assembly puzzles, these puzzles usually do not just fall apart easily.
The level of difficulty is usually assessed in terms of the number of moves required to remove the first piece from the initial puzzle.
The image shows one of the most notorious representatives of this category, the Chinese wood knot. In this particular version designed by Bill Cutler
, 5 moves are needed before the first piece can be removed.
The known history of these puzzles reaches back to the beginning of the 18th century. In 1803 a catalog by “Bastelmeier” contained two puzzles of this type. Professor Hoffman's puzzle book mentioned above also contained two interlocking puzzles.
At the beginning of the 19th century the Japanese took over the market for these puzzles. They developed a multitude of games in all kinds of different shapes – animals, houses and other objects - whereas the development in the western world revolved mainly around geometrical shapes.
With the help of computers, it has recently become possible to analyze complete sets of games played. This process was begun by Bill Cutler with his analysis of all the Chinese wood knots. From October 1987 to August 1990 all the 35 657 131 235 different variations were analyzed. The calculations were done by several computers in parallel and would have taken a total of 62.5 years on a single computer.
With shapes different from the Chinese cross the level of difficulty lately reached levels of up to 100 moves for the first piece to be removed, a scale humans would struggle to grasp. The peak of this development is a puzzle in which the addition of a few pieces doubles the number of moves.
However, computer analysis also led to another trend: since the rotation of pieces cannot, with today's software, be analyzed by computers , there has been a trend to create puzzles whose solution must include at least one rotation. These then have to be solved by hand.
Prior to the 2003 publication of the RD Design Project by Owen, Charnley and Strickland, puzzles without right angles could not be efficiently analyzed by computers. Stewart Coffin has been creating puzzles based upon the rhombic dodecahedron
since the 1960s. These made use of strips with either six or three edges.
These kinds of puzzles often have extremely irregular components, which come together in a regular shape only at the very last step. Furthermore, the 60° angles allow designs in which several objects have to be moved at the same time. The “Rosebud” puzzle is a prime example of this: in this puzzle 6 pieces have to be moved from one extreme position, in which they are only touching at the corners, to the center of the completed object.
For these kind of puzzles, the goal is to disentangle a metal or string loop from an object. Topology
plays an important role with these puzzles.
The image shows a version of the derringer puzzle. Although simple in appearance, it is quite challenging - most puzzle sites rank it among their hardest puzzles.
Vexiers are a different sort of disentanglement puzzle - two or more metal wires, which have been intertwined, are to be untangled. They, too, spread with the general puzzle craze at the end of the 19th century. A large number of the Vexiers still available today originate in this period.
So called ring puzzles, of which the Chinese rings are part, are a different type of Vexier. In these puzzles a long wire loop must be unsnarled from a mesh of rings and wires. The number of steps required for a solution often has an exponential relationship with the number of loops in the puzzle. The common type, which connects the rings to a bar with cords (or loose metal equivalents) has a movement pattern identical to the Gray binary code, in which only one bit changes from one code word relative to its immediate neighbor.
A noteworthy puzzle, known as the Chinese rings, Cardans’ rings, the Baguenaudier
or the Renaissance puzzle was Mentioned in circa 1500 as Problem 107 of the manuscript “De Viribus Quantitatis” by Luca Pacioli. The puzzle is again referred to by Girolamo Cardano in the 1550 edition of his book “De subtililate.” Although the puzzle is a disentanglement type Puzzle it also has mechanical puzzle attributes, and the solution can be derived as a binary mathematical procedure.
The Chinese rings are associated with the tale that in the Middle Ages
, knight
s would give these to their wives as a present, so that in their absence they may fill their time. Tavern puzzles, made of steel, are based on forging exercises that provided good practice for blacksmith apprentices.
Niels Bohr
used disentanglement puzzles called Tangloids
to demonstrate the properties of spin
to his students.
could be counted in this category. A better example is shown in the picture. The task is to fold the square piece of paper so that the four squares with the numbers lie next to each other without any gaps and form a square. This puzzle is pretty complex already.
Another folding puzzle is folding prospectuses and city maps. Despite the often visible folding direction at the folding points it can be extraordinarily difficult to put the paper back into the form with which it originally came. The reason these maps are difficult to restore to their original state is that the folds are designed for a paper-folding machine, in which the optimum folds are not of the sort an average person would try to use.
s) which have an unusual locking mechanism. The aim is to open the lock. If you are given a key, it will not open the lock in the conventional way. For some locks it may then be more difficult to restore the original situation.
and Phoenicians made containers which had to be filled via an opening at the bottom. In the 9th century a number of different containers were described in detail in a Turkish
book. In the 18th century the Chinese also produced these kinds of drinking containers.
One example is the puzzle jug
: the neck of the container has many holes which make it possible to pour liquid into the container, but not out of it. Hidden to the puzzler's eye, there is a small tubular conduit all the way through the grip and along the upper rim of the container up to the nozzle. If one then blocks the opening at the upper end of the grip with one finger, it is possible to drink liquid from the container by sucking on the nozzle.
Other examples include Fuddling cup
and Pot crown.
Impossible objects are objects which at first sight do not seem possible. The most well known impossible object is the ship in a bottle
. The goal is to discover how these objects are made. Another well known puzzle is one consisting of a cube made of two pieces interlocked in 4 places by seemingly inseparable links (example). The solutions to these are to be found in different places. There are all kinds of objects which fit this description – bottles in which there are objects that are far too large (see impossible bottle
s), Japanese hole coins with wooden arrows and rings through them, wooden spheres in a wooden frame with far too small openings and many more.
The apple and arrow in the picture are made of one piece of wood each. The hole is in effect too small to fit the arrow through it and there are no signs of gluing. How was it made?
The games listed in this category are not strictly puzzles as such, as dexterity and endurance are of more importance here. Often, the aim is to incline a box fitted with a transparent cover in just the right way as to cause a small ball to fall into a hole.
The puzzles in this category require a repeated manipulation of the puzzle to get the puzzle to a certain target condition. Well-known puzzles of this sort are the Rubik's Cube
and the Tower of Hanoi
.
This category also includes those puzzles in which one or more pieces have to be slid into the right position, of which the N-puzzle
is the best known. Rush Hour
or Sokoban
are other examples.
The Rubik's cube
caused an unprecedented boom of this category. The sheer number of variants is staggering. Cubes of dimensions 2×2×2
, 3×3×3
, 4×4×4
, 5×5×5
, 6×6×6
and 7×7×7
have been made, as well as tetrahedral, octahedral, icosahedral, and dodecahedral variants and even some based on different types of cylinders. With a varying orientation of the axis of rotation a variety of puzzles with the same basic shape can be created. Furthermore, one can obtain further cuboidal puzzles by removing one layer from a cube. These cuboidal puzzles take irregular shapes when they are manipulated.
The picture shows another, less well-known example of this kind of puzzle. It is just easy enough that it can still be solved with a bit of trial and error, and a few notes, as opposed to Rubik's Cube which is too difficult to just solve by trial.
Puzzle
A puzzle is a problem or enigma that tests the ingenuity of the solver. In a basic puzzle, one is intended to put together pieces in a logical way in order to come up with the desired solution...
presented as a set of mechanically interlinked pieces.
History
The oldest known mechanical puzzle comes from GreeceGreece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
and appeared in the 3rd century BC.
The game consists of a square divided into 14 parts, and the aim was to create different shapes from these pieces. This is not easy to do. (see Ostomachion
Ostomachion
Ostomachion, also known as loculus Archimedius and also as syntomachion, is a mathematical treatise attributed to Archimedes. This work has survived fragmentarily in an Arabic version and in a copy of the original ancient Greek text made in Byzantine times...
loculus Archimedius)
In Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
“puzzle-locks” were made as early as the 17th century AD.
The next known occurrence of puzzles is in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. In 1742 there is a mention of a game called “Sei Shona-gon Chie No-Ita” in a book. Around the year 1800 the Tangram
Tangram
The tangram is a dissection puzzle consisting of seven flat shapes, called tans, which are put together to form shapes. The objective of the puzzle is to form a specific shape using all seven pieces, which may not overlap...
puzzle from China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
became popular, and 20 years later it had spread through Europe and America.
The company Richter from Rudolstadt
Rudolstadt
Rudolstadt is a town in the German Bundesland of Thuringia, close to the Thuringian Forest to the southwest, and to Jena and Weimar to the north....
began producing large amounts of Tangram-like puzzles of different shapes, the so-called “Anker-puzzles”.
The beginning of the 20th century was a time in which puzzles were greatly fashionable and the first patents for puzzles were recorded. The puzzle shown in the picture, made of 12 identical pieces by W. Altekruse in the year 1890, was an example of this.
With the invention of modern polymer
Polymer
A polymer is a large molecule composed of repeating structural units. These subunits are typically connected by covalent chemical bonds...
s manufacture of many puzzles became easier and cheaper.
Assembly puzzles
Soma cube
The Soma cube is a solid dissection puzzle invented by Piet Hein in 1933 during a lecture on quantum mechanics conducted by Werner Heisenberg. Seven pieces made out of unit cubes must be assembled into a 3x3x3 cube...
made by Piet Hein
Piet Hein (Denmark)
Piet Hein was a Danish scientist, mathematician, inventor, designer, author, and poet, often writing under the Old Norse pseudonym "Kumbel" meaning "tombstone"...
, the Pentomino
Pentomino
A pentomino is a polyomino composed of five congruent squares, connected along their edges ....
by Solomon Golomb and the aforementioned laying puzzles Tangram
Tangram
The tangram is a dissection puzzle consisting of seven flat shapes, called tans, which are put together to form shapes. The objective of the puzzle is to form a specific shape using all seven pieces, which may not overlap...
and “Anker-puzzles” are all examples of this type of puzzle.
Furthermore, problems in which a number of pieces have to be arranged so as to fit into a (seemingly too small) box are also classed in this category.
The image shows a variant of Hoffman's packing problem. The aim is to pack 27 cuboid
Cuboid
In geometry, a cuboid is a solid figure bounded by six faces, forming a convex polyhedron. There are two competing definitions of a cuboid in mathematical literature...
s with side lengths A, B, C into a box of side length A+B+C, subject to two constraints:
- 1) A, B, C must not be equal
- 2) The smallest of A, B, C must be larger than
One possibility would be A=18, B=20, C=22 – the box would then have to have the dimensions 60×60×60.
Modern tools such as laser cutters
Laser cutting
Laser cutting is a technology that uses a laser to cut materials, and is typically used for industrial manufacturing applications, but is also starting to be used by schools, small businesses and hobbyists. Laser cutting works by directing the output of a high-power laser, by computer, at the...
allow the creation of complex 2 dimensional puzzles made of wood or acrylic plastic. In recent times this has become predominant and puzzles of extraordinarily decorative geometry have been designed. This makes use of the multitude of ways of subdividing areas into repeating shapes
Tessellation
A tessellation or tiling of the plane is a pattern of plane figures that fills the plane with no overlaps and no gaps. One may also speak of tessellations of parts of the plane or of other surfaces. Generalizations to higher dimensions are also possible. Tessellations frequently appeared in the art...
.
Computers aid in the design of new puzzles. A computer allows an exhaustive search for solution – with its help a puzzle may be designed in such a way that it has the fewest possible solutions, or a solution requiring the most steps possible. The consequence is that solving the puzzle can be very difficult.
The use of transparent materials enables the creation of puzzles, in which pieces have to be stacked on top of each other. The aim is to create a specific pattern, image or colour scheme in the solution.
For example, one puzzle consists of several discs in which angular sections of varying sizes are differently coloured. The discs have to be stacked so as to create a colour circle (red->blue->green->red) around the discs.
Disassembly puzzles
Trial and error
Trial and error, or trial by error, is a general method of problem solving, fixing things, or for obtaining knowledge."Learning doesn't happen from failure itself but rather from analyzing the failure, making a change, and then trying again."...
. Furthermore, puzzles consisting of several metal pieces linked together in some fashion are also considered part of this category.
The two puzzles shown in the picture are especially good for social gatherings, since they appear to be very easily taken apart, but in reality many people cannot solve this puzzle. The problem here lies in the shape of the interlocking pieces — the mating surfaces are tapered, and thus can only be removed in one direction. However, each piece has two oppositely sloping tapers mating with the two adjoining pieces so that the piece cannot be removed in either direction.
Boxes called secret boxes or puzzle box
Puzzle box
A puzzle box is a box that can only be opened through some obscure or complicated series of manipulations. Some puzzle boxes may require only a simple squeeze in the right spot, whereas others may require the subtle movement of several small parts, to open the box...
es with secret opening mechanisms extremely popular in Japan, are included in this category. These caskets contain more or less complex, usually invisible opening mechanisms which reveal a small hollow space on opening. There is a vast variety of opening mechanisms, such as hardly visible panels which need to be shifted, inclination mechanisms, magnetic locks, movable pins which need to be rotated into a certain position up and even time lock
Time lock
A time lock is a part of a locking mechanism commonly found in bank vaults and other high-security containers. The timelock is a timer designed to prevent the opening of the safe or vault until it reaches 0, even if the correct combination are known...
s in which an object has to be held in a given position until a liquid has filled up a certain container.
Interlocking puzzles
Both assembly and disassembly can be difficult – contrary to assembly puzzles, these puzzles usually do not just fall apart easily.
The level of difficulty is usually assessed in terms of the number of moves required to remove the first piece from the initial puzzle.
The image shows one of the most notorious representatives of this category, the Chinese wood knot. In this particular version designed by Bill Cutler
Bill Cutler
William H. Cutler is a retired American mathematician and systems analyst, living in Illinois USA.His main interest and area of research is in burr puzzles and packing puzzles...
, 5 moves are needed before the first piece can be removed.
The known history of these puzzles reaches back to the beginning of the 18th century. In 1803 a catalog by “Bastelmeier” contained two puzzles of this type. Professor Hoffman's puzzle book mentioned above also contained two interlocking puzzles.
At the beginning of the 19th century the Japanese took over the market for these puzzles. They developed a multitude of games in all kinds of different shapes – animals, houses and other objects - whereas the development in the western world revolved mainly around geometrical shapes.
With the help of computers, it has recently become possible to analyze complete sets of games played. This process was begun by Bill Cutler with his analysis of all the Chinese wood knots. From October 1987 to August 1990 all the 35 657 131 235 different variations were analyzed. The calculations were done by several computers in parallel and would have taken a total of 62.5 years on a single computer.
However, computer analysis also led to another trend: since the rotation of pieces cannot, with today's software, be analyzed by computers , there has been a trend to create puzzles whose solution must include at least one rotation. These then have to be solved by hand.
Prior to the 2003 publication of the RD Design Project by Owen, Charnley and Strickland, puzzles without right angles could not be efficiently analyzed by computers. Stewart Coffin has been creating puzzles based upon the rhombic dodecahedron
Rhombic dodecahedron
In geometry, the rhombic dodecahedron is a convex polyhedron with 12 rhombic faces. It is an Archimedean dual solid, or a Catalan solid. Its dual is the cuboctahedron.-Properties:...
since the 1960s. These made use of strips with either six or three edges.
These kinds of puzzles often have extremely irregular components, which come together in a regular shape only at the very last step. Furthermore, the 60° angles allow designs in which several objects have to be moved at the same time. The “Rosebud” puzzle is a prime example of this: in this puzzle 6 pieces have to be moved from one extreme position, in which they are only touching at the corners, to the center of the completed object.
Disentanglement Puzzles
Topology
Topology is a major area of mathematics concerned with properties that are preserved under continuous deformations of objects, such as deformations that involve stretching, but no tearing or gluing...
plays an important role with these puzzles.
The image shows a version of the derringer puzzle. Although simple in appearance, it is quite challenging - most puzzle sites rank it among their hardest puzzles.
Vexiers are a different sort of disentanglement puzzle - two or more metal wires, which have been intertwined, are to be untangled. They, too, spread with the general puzzle craze at the end of the 19th century. A large number of the Vexiers still available today originate in this period.
So called ring puzzles, of which the Chinese rings are part, are a different type of Vexier. In these puzzles a long wire loop must be unsnarled from a mesh of rings and wires. The number of steps required for a solution often has an exponential relationship with the number of loops in the puzzle. The common type, which connects the rings to a bar with cords (or loose metal equivalents) has a movement pattern identical to the Gray binary code, in which only one bit changes from one code word relative to its immediate neighbor.
A noteworthy puzzle, known as the Chinese rings, Cardans’ rings, the Baguenaudier
Baguenaudier
right|thumb|200pxBaguenaudier is a mechanical puzzle featuring a double loop of string which must be disentangled from a sequence of rings on interlinked pillars. The puzzle is thought to have been invented originally in China...
or the Renaissance puzzle was Mentioned in circa 1500 as Problem 107 of the manuscript “De Viribus Quantitatis” by Luca Pacioli. The puzzle is again referred to by Girolamo Cardano in the 1550 edition of his book “De subtililate.” Although the puzzle is a disentanglement type Puzzle it also has mechanical puzzle attributes, and the solution can be derived as a binary mathematical procedure.
The Chinese rings are associated with the tale that in the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
, knight
Knight
A knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....
s would give these to their wives as a present, so that in their absence they may fill their time. Tavern puzzles, made of steel, are based on forging exercises that provided good practice for blacksmith apprentices.
Niels Bohr
Niels Bohr
Niels Henrik David Bohr was a Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum mechanics, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. Bohr mentored and collaborated with many of the top physicists of the century at his institute in...
used disentanglement puzzles called Tangloids
Tangloids
Tangloids is a mathematical game for two players created by Piet Hein to model the calculus of spinors.Two flat blocks of wood each pierced with three tiny holes are joined with three parallel strings. Each player holds one of the blocks of wood. The first player holds one block of wood still,...
to demonstrate the properties of spin
Spin (physics)
In quantum mechanics and particle physics, spin is a fundamental characteristic property of elementary particles, composite particles , and atomic nuclei.It is worth noting that the intrinsic property of subatomic particles called spin and discussed in this article, is related in some small ways,...
to his students.
Fold Puzzles
The aim in this particular genre of puzzles is to fold a printed piece of paper in such a way as to obtain a target picture. In principle, Rubik's MagicRubik's Magic
Rubik's Magic, like Rubik's Cube, is a mechanical puzzle invented by the Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik and first manufactured by Matchbox in the mid-1980s....
could be counted in this category. A better example is shown in the picture. The task is to fold the square piece of paper so that the four squares with the numbers lie next to each other without any gaps and form a square. This puzzle is pretty complex already.
Another folding puzzle is folding prospectuses and city maps. Despite the often visible folding direction at the folding points it can be extraordinarily difficult to put the paper back into the form with which it originally came. The reason these maps are difficult to restore to their original state is that the folds are designed for a paper-folding machine, in which the optimum folds are not of the sort an average person would try to use.
Lock puzzle
These puzzles, also called trick locks, are locks (often padlockPadlock
Padlocks are portable locks used to protect against theft, vandalism, sabotage, unauthorized use, and harm. They are designed to protect against some degree of forced and surreptitious entry.- History :...
s) which have an unusual locking mechanism. The aim is to open the lock. If you are given a key, it will not open the lock in the conventional way. For some locks it may then be more difficult to restore the original situation.
Trick vessels
These are vessels “with a twist”. The aim is to either drink or pour from a container without spilling any of the liquid. Puzzle containers are an ancient form of game. The GreeksGreeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
and Phoenicians made containers which had to be filled via an opening at the bottom. In the 9th century a number of different containers were described in detail in a Turkish
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
book. In the 18th century the Chinese also produced these kinds of drinking containers.
One example is the puzzle jug
Puzzle jug
A puzzle jug is a puzzle in the form of a jug. The challenge—to drink the contents without spilling, which, because the neck of the jug is perforated, is impossible to do conventionally—is often written on the jug...
: the neck of the container has many holes which make it possible to pour liquid into the container, but not out of it. Hidden to the puzzler's eye, there is a small tubular conduit all the way through the grip and along the upper rim of the container up to the nozzle. If one then blocks the opening at the upper end of the grip with one finger, it is possible to drink liquid from the container by sucking on the nozzle.
Other examples include Fuddling cup
Fuddling cup
A fuddling cup is a three-dimensional puzzle in the form of a drinking-vessel, made of three or more cups or jugs all linked together by holes and tubes. The challenge of the puzzle is to drink from the vessel in such a way that the beverage does not spill. To do this successfully, the cups must be...
and Pot crown.
Impossible Objects
Impossible bottle
An impossible bottle is a type of mechanical puzzle. It is a bottle that has an object inside it that does not appear to fit through the mouth of the bottle. The objects inside authentic impossible bottles must always go through the neck. The glass cannot be cut or blown around the objects.The ship...
. The goal is to discover how these objects are made. Another well known puzzle is one consisting of a cube made of two pieces interlocked in 4 places by seemingly inseparable links (example). The solutions to these are to be found in different places. There are all kinds of objects which fit this description – bottles in which there are objects that are far too large (see impossible bottle
Impossible bottle
An impossible bottle is a type of mechanical puzzle. It is a bottle that has an object inside it that does not appear to fit through the mouth of the bottle. The objects inside authentic impossible bottles must always go through the neck. The glass cannot be cut or blown around the objects.The ship...
s), Japanese hole coins with wooden arrows and rings through them, wooden spheres in a wooden frame with far too small openings and many more.
The apple and arrow in the picture are made of one piece of wood each. The hole is in effect too small to fit the arrow through it and there are no signs of gluing. How was it made?
Dexterity puzzles
Sequential movement puzzle
The puzzles in this category require a repeated manipulation of the puzzle to get the puzzle to a certain target condition. Well-known puzzles of this sort are the Rubik's Cube
Rubik's Cube
Rubik's Cube is a 3-D mechanical puzzle invented in 1974 by Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik.Originally called the "Magic Cube", the puzzle was licensed by Rubik to be sold by Ideal Toy Corp. in 1980 and won the German Game of the Year special award for Best Puzzle that...
and the Tower of Hanoi
Tower of Hanoi
The Tower of Hanoi or Towers of Hanoi, also called the Tower of Brahma or Towers of Brahma, is a mathematical game or puzzle. It consists of three rods, and a number of disks of different sizes which can slide onto any rod...
.
This category also includes those puzzles in which one or more pieces have to be slid into the right position, of which the N-puzzle
N-puzzle
The 15-puzzle is a sliding puzzle that consists of a frame of numbered square tiles in random order with one tile missing. The puzzle also exists in other sizes, particularly the smaller 8-puzzle...
is the best known. Rush Hour
Rush Hour (board game)
Rush Hour is a sliding block puzzle invented by Nob Yoshigahara in the late 1970s and first sold in the United States in 1996. It is manufactured by ThinkFun ....
or Sokoban
Sokoban
is a type of transport puzzle, in which the player pushes boxes or crates around in a warehouse, trying to get them to storage locations. The puzzle is usually implemented as a video game....
are other examples.
The Rubik's cube
Rubik's Cube
Rubik's Cube is a 3-D mechanical puzzle invented in 1974 by Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik.Originally called the "Magic Cube", the puzzle was licensed by Rubik to be sold by Ideal Toy Corp. in 1980 and won the German Game of the Year special award for Best Puzzle that...
caused an unprecedented boom of this category. The sheer number of variants is staggering. Cubes of dimensions 2×2×2
Pocket Cube
The Pocket Cube is the 2×2×2 equivalent of a Rubik's Cube. The cube consists of 8 pieces, all corners.-Permutations:...
, 3×3×3
Rubik's Cube
Rubik's Cube is a 3-D mechanical puzzle invented in 1974 by Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik.Originally called the "Magic Cube", the puzzle was licensed by Rubik to be sold by Ideal Toy Corp. in 1980 and won the German Game of the Year special award for Best Puzzle that...
, 4×4×4
Rubik's Revenge
The Rubik's Revenge is the 4×4×4 version of Rubik's Cube. Invented by Péter Sebestény, the Rubik's Revenge was nearly called the Sebestény Cube until a somewhat last-minute decision changed the puzzle's name to attract fans of the original Rubik's Cube...
, 5×5×5
Professor's Cube
The Professor's Cube is a mechanical puzzle, a 5×5×5 version of the Rubik's Cube. It has qualities in common with both the original 3×3×3 Rubik's Cube and the 4×4×4 Rubik's Revenge, and knowing the solution to either can help when working on the 5×5×5 cube....
, 6×6×6
V-Cube 6
The V-Cube 6 is the 6×6×6 version of Rubik's Cube. Unlike the original puzzle , it has no fixed facets: the center facets are free to move to different positions...
and 7×7×7
V-Cube 7
The V-Cube 7 is the 7×7×7 version of Rubik's Cube. It was invented by Panagiotis Verdes and is produced by his company, Verdes Innovations SA. Like the 5×5×5, the V-Cube 7 has both fixed and movable center facets.- Mechanics :...
have been made, as well as tetrahedral, octahedral, icosahedral, and dodecahedral variants and even some based on different types of cylinders. With a varying orientation of the axis of rotation a variety of puzzles with the same basic shape can be created. Furthermore, one can obtain further cuboidal puzzles by removing one layer from a cube. These cuboidal puzzles take irregular shapes when they are manipulated.
The picture shows another, less well-known example of this kind of puzzle. It is just easy enough that it can still be solved with a bit of trial and error, and a few notes, as opposed to Rubik's Cube which is too difficult to just solve by trial.
Simulated mechanical puzzles
While many computer games and computer puzzles simulate mechanical puzzles, these simulated mechanical puzzles are usually not strictly classified as mechanical puzzles.Other notable mechanical puzzles
- Chinese Ring Puzzle: Recursive iron ring manipulation (ancient)
- NintendoNintendois a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....
Ten Billion Barrel: manipulate mechanically connected parts of a barrel - PyraminxPyraminxThe Pyraminx is a tetrahedral puzzle similar to the Rubik's Cube. It was invented and patented by Uwe Meffert, and introduced by Tomy Toys of Japan in 1981. Meffert continues to sell it in his toy shop, ....
: manipulate mechanically connected parts of a pyramid - Hedgehog in the CageHedgehog in the CageHedgehog in the Cage is a mechanical puzzle popular in the Czech Republic which features prominently in the "Dobrodružství v temných uličkách" trilogy of adventure stories by Jaroslav Foglar...
: mechanical puzzle popular in the Czech RepublicCzech RepublicThe Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
External links
- Website of John Rausch's puzzle collection Contains a well-illustrated puzzle collection and numerous Java applets of sliding puzzles. Stewart Coffin's (one of the most important puzzle designers) books may be obtained, too.
- Rob's Puzzle Page Photos of a very large collection of all types of puzzles, plus analysis, commentary, and links to many other sites of interest to puzzlers
- Puzzle designs prepared by ISHINO Keiichiro This site contains a huge collection of accurate descriptions for assembly and interlocking puzzles. Those skilled enough can create their own creation with the designs presented.
- Puzzle iT web site by Dr. Florian Radut A British-Romanian puzzle collection: mechanical puzzles, 2D puzzles, 3D puzzles, logic games and anagram puzzles, some of them used in TV Game-Shows, SMS contests and online contests.
- Oskar van Deventer A prolific inventor of highly innovative mechanical and other puzzles.
- Archimedes' Lab Puzzle Website Contains a huge quantity of puzzles to make and to solve along with various educational activities.
- The Jerry Slocum Mechanical Puzzle Collection Highlights from Jerry Slocum's extensive puzzle collection, including many puzzles of historical significance.