Tag Archives: Puzzle

Burr Puzzle

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Burr Puzzle

Is the Burr puzzle too puzzling?

  • Burr puzzles are interlocking puzzles, assembled by placing notched wood, plastic or metal  sticks together strategically, to make a type of open cube or rectangular prism.
  • A burr puzzle most commonly has 6 pieces and quality burrs are made very accurately allowing pieces to fit together snugly while easily sliding on each other.
  • The term ‘burr puzzle’ is probably reference to the shape of the puzzle being similar to a burr from certain plants, and has been adapted for use with other puzzles without sticks.
  • Although the origin of burr puzzles is unknown, one is depicted in the 1968 engraving by Sébastien Leclerc entitled L’Académie des sciences et des beaux-arts meaning ‘The Academy of Sciences and Fine Arts’.
  • It is said that there are 837 different pieces that could be made for a 6 piece burr puzzle, and there are almost 6 billion possible ways to fit these together to make a puzzle.

Burr Puzzle, Wood, Two, Notches, Skeleton, Light, Dark, Ten Random Facts

  • Some suggest that burr puzzles are of Chinese origin, like many other puzzles, such as tangrams, and reference to traditional Chinese yarn winders, furniture and other items that are constructed in a similar style point to that theory.
  • There are many types of burr puzzles, ranging from 3 to at least 12 pieces, diagonal burrs and holey burrs, and other varieties are also available.
  • With some burr puzzles, pieces are turned or twirled to move them into the correct position, however this is not the case with traditional burrs.
  • The first accepted patent for the burr puzzle was in 1916 by O W Brown, an American, although an earlier patent by J W Keiser was filed.
  • A burr puzzle is known by many other names including ‘six-piece interlocking cube’, ‘puzzle knot’, ‘six wooden sticks’, ‘Devil’s knot’, ‘Lu Ban locks’, ‘Kong Ming locks’ and ‘Chinese Cross’.
Bibliography:
Burr Puzzle, 2013 Wikipedia, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burr_puzzle>
Traditional 6-Piece Burrs, n.d, Rob’s Puzzle Page, <http://home.comcast.net/~stegmann/interlocking.htm>

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Rubik’s Cube

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Rubik’s Cube

Twist, turn, twist, turn Rubik’s cube

  • A Rubik’s Cube is a 3D puzzle, typically a 5.7 cm (2.25 inches) cube, that involves turning connected smaller cubes to create a solid colour on each side of the large cube.
  • Ernő Rubik, who was a Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture, invented the Rubik’s Cube in 1974, and it took him more than a month to solve it.
  • Rubik’s Cube was the game of the year in Germany in the 1980s, and became a craze in the same decade, as well as the most popular puzzle, with 350 million cubes being sold up to 2009.
  • The classic Rubik’s Cube has 26 cubies, which are the smaller cubes that make up the large one, six faces of nine tiles, also known as the 3 x 3 x 3 cube, with the tiles traditionally white, red, blue, orange, green and yellow.
  • Rubik’s Cube is also known as the ‘Magic Cube’, or ‘Büvös Kocka’, the original names, as well as the ‘Hungarian Horror’.

Rubik's Cube, Green, Half Complete, unfinished, Blue, Yellow, Red, orange, Coloured, 3 x 3 x 3, Puzzle, Game, Magic Cube, Ten Random Facts

  • It is said that some Rubik’s Cube experts can solve the puzzle in 24 to 28 moves, in the standard puzzle position.
  • The Rubik’s Cube has variations that range from pocket sized 2 x 2 x 2 cubes to enormous, most expensive  17 x 17 x 17 cubes that cost over $1000 as well as virtual versions in both 4D and 5D.
  • The quickest official time to solve a Rubik’s Cube is in 5.55 seconds, achieved in March 2013 by Mats Valk from the Netherlands.
  • There is only one correct answer to the Rubik’s Cube, with 43 quintillion incorrect ones and both Rubik and experts believe that the cube would take more than a lifetime to solve if the pieces were moved randomly.
  • Rubik invented the Rubik’s Cube to answer the following question: “How could the blocks move independently without falling apart”.
Bibliography:
Bellis, M 2013, Rubik’s Cube, About.com, <http://inventors.about.com/od/rstartinventions/a/Rubik_Cube.htm>
Rubik’s Cube, 2013, Wikipedia, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubik’s_Cube>

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Crosswords

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Crosswords

Think… Think… and think again…

  • Crosswords are word puzzles that generally have a numbered black and white rectangular or square grid with a list of clues, the answer of which get written in the appropriate squares on the grid.
  • Crosswords have different appearances and variations depending on the country and language system, with Hebrew crosswords only using consonants, and Japanese crosswords using one syllable per square, instead of one letter.
  • Crosswords can range in difficulty from easy to hard, and are often set in a square and have 125 (15 by 15) to 425 (25 by 25) squares, to be filled in.
  • The first true crossword is attributed to journalist Arthur Wynne, which was published in the “New York World”, in December 1913, and prior to this, similar word puzzles had been created, most notably, Italian Giuseppe Airoldi’s puzzle published in an Italian magazine in 1890, which had a square grid.
  • There are two main types of clues for crossword puzzles, clues that have answers as simple definitions, known as ‘straight crosswords, ‘quick crosswords’ or simply ‘crosswords’, and clues which are ambiguous and a puzzle themselves, known as ‘cryptic crosswords’.

Crosswords, Two, Old, Empty, Fresh, Grid, Book, Puzzle, word, Ten Random Facts

  • In 1924 in America, the newly formed company Simon & Schuster, started by Richard Simon and Lincoln Schuster, published the first crossword puzzle book, which proved very popular, and the company still holds a prominent place in the United States for the publishing of crossword books.
  • Roger Squires, of the United Kingdom, has designed the most crossword puzzles, starting in the 1960s, having is 66,666th puzzle on May 14, 2007.
  • The longest word ever set in a crossword was Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, which is a Welsh town of 58 letters, and was the answer to one of Roger Squire’s clues.
  • Arthur Wynne’s crossword was originally known as ‘word-cross’, and this quickly changed to ‘cross-word’, and after a while the hyphen was removed.
  • Someone who creates crosswords is a ‘cruciverbalist’, although crossword puzzle enthusiasts are also called ‘cruciverbalists’, although the term is not often used, and the creator is more commonly referred to as a ‘setter’, ‘constructor’ or ‘compiler’.
Bibliography:
Crossword, 2013, Wikipedia, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossword>
The World’s First Crossword, 2010, Thinks.com, <http://thinks.com/crosswords/first1.htm>
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