The Eighteen Dominoes.
The illustration shows eighteen dominoes arranged in the form of a
square so that the pips in every one of the six columns, six rows, and
two long diagonals add up 13. This is the smallest summation possible
wi...
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Visiting The Towns.
A traveller, starting from town No. 1, wishes to visit every one of the
towns once, and once only, going only by roads indicated by straight
lines. How many different routes are there from which he can select? ...
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Buying Chestnuts.
Though the following little puzzle deals with the purchase of chestnuts,
it is not itself of the "chestnut" type. It is quite new. At first sight
it has certainly the appearance of being of the "nonsense puzzle...
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The Tramps And The Biscuits
Four merry tramps bought, borrowed, found, or in some other manner obtained possession of a box of biscuits, which they agreed to divide equally amongst themselves at breakfast next morning. In the night, ...
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The Eight Rooks.
[Illustration:
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| | | | | | | | |
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| | | | | | | | |
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
|...
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A Bank Holiday Puzzle.
Two friends were spending their bank holiday on a cycling trip. Stopping
for a rest at a village inn, they consulted a route map, which is
represented in our illustration in an exceedingly simplified form, for
...
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The Two Errand Boys
A country baker sent off his boy with a message to the butcher in the next village, and at the same time the butcher sent his boy to the baker. One ran faster than the other, and they were seen to pass at...
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The Magic Strips.
I happened to have lying on my table a number of strips of cardboard,
with numbers printed on them from 1 upwards in numerical order. The idea
suddenly came to me, as ideas have a way of unexpectedly coming, to...
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Papa's Puzzle.
Here is a puzzle by Pappus, who lived at Alexandria about the end of the
third century. It is the fifth proposition in the eighth book of his
_Mathematical Collections_. I give it in the form that I presented i...
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Captain Longbow And The Bears
That eminent and more or less veracious traveller Captain Longbow has a great grievance with the public. He claims that during a recent expedition in Arctic regions he actually reached the North Pole, but...
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The Thirty-six Letter-blocks.
The illustration represents a box containing thirty-six letter-blocks.
The puzzle is to rearrange these blocks so that no A shall be in a line
vertically, horizontally, or diagonally with another A, no B with
a...
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Concerning Tommy's Age.
Tommy Smart was recently sent to a new school. On the first day of his
arrival the teacher asked him his age, and this was his curious reply:
"Well, you see, it is like this. At the time I was born--I forget th...
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The Mandarin's Puzzle.
The following puzzle has an added interest from the circumstance that a
correct solution of it secured for a certain young Chinaman the hand of
his charming bride. The wealthiest mandarin within a radius of a h...
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Noughts And Crosses
Every child knows how to play this game. You make a square of nine cells, and each of the two players, playing alternately, puts his mark (a nought or a cross, as the case may be) in a cell with the objec...
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The Game Of Bandy-ball
Bandy-ball, cambuc, or goff (the game so well known to-day by the name of golf), is of great antiquity, and was a special favourite at Solvamhall Castle. Sir Hugh de Fortibus was himself a master of the g...
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The Perplexed Cellarman
Here is a little puzzle culled from the traditions of an old monastery in the west of England. Abbot Francis, it seems, was a very worthy man; and his methods of equity extended to those little acts of ch...
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The Board In Compartments.
We cannot divide the ordinary chessboard into four equal square
compartments, and describe a complete tour, or even path, in each
compartment. But we may divide it into four compartments, as in the
illustration...
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The Reve's Puzzle
The Reve was a wily man and something of a scholar. As Chaucer tells us, "There was no auditor could of ...
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The Adventurous Snail
A simple version of the puzzle of the climbing snail is familiar to everybody. We were all taught it in the nur...
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The Nun's Puzzle
"I trow there be not one among ye," quoth the Nun, on a later occasion, "that doth not know that many monks do oft pass the time in play at certain games, albeit they be not lawful for them...
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