Some "15" puzzles are unsolvable

The example shown, posted on the puzzles subreddit, is on a watch.  What I remember are the old "analog" versions with small sliding wooden pieces in a frame.  I used to get great satisfaction as a child by solving scrambled puzzles.  What I learned this morning is that the puzzles date back way before my time:

The puzzle was "invented" by Noyes Palmer Chapman, a postmaster in Canastota, New York, who is said to have shown friends, as early as 1874, a precursor puzzle consisting of 16 numbered blocks that were to be put together in rows of four, each summing to 34 (see magic square)... The game became a craze in the U.S. in 1880...

Some later interest was fueled by [Sam] Loyd's offer of a $1,000 prize (equivalent to $34,996 in 2024) to anyone who could provide a solution for achieving a particular combination specified by Loyd, namely reversing the 14 and 15, which Loyd called the 14-15 puzzle. This is impossible, as had been shown over a decade earlier by Johnson & Story (1879), because it requires a transformation from an even to an odd permutation.

The Reddit thread confirms that the one illustrated is unsolvable, which is confirmed at the Wikipedia entry.  In fact, half of all initial states of the puzzle will be mathematically impossible to resolve.  To guarantee solvability, a puzzle would need to be manufactured with the pieces "solved" and then scrambled before distribution (or by asking the end-user to do so).  I'm glad all my childhood versions were solvable.

Logic puzzle involving gears

The answer is in the discussion thread at the SmartPuzzles subreddit.

Geometry puzzle

The diagram is NOT drawn to scale, so don't put a ruler on line x to measure the distance.  Figure it out in your head using simple logic and math.

A word bracket puzzle

In each bracket, find a word that can logically follow the top word in the pairing, and also precede the bottom word in the pairing (solved example at the bottom).

A diversion for a wintry February day.  Answers at the puzzles subreddit source, or perhaps in some readers' comments.

Rebuses

"It was a favourite form of heraldic expression used in the Middle Ages to denote surnames. For example, in its basic form, three salmon (fish) are used to denote the surname "Salmon". A more sophisticated example was the rebus of Bishop Walter Lyhart (d. 1472) of Norwich, consisting of a stag (or hart) lying down in a conventional representation of water. The composition alludes to the name, profession or personal characteristics of the bearer, and speaks to the beholder Non verbis, sed rebus, which Latin expression signifies "not by words but by things" (res, rei (f), a thing, object, matter; rebus being ablative plural)."

Found at the Rebus subreddit, where there are lots more rebuses to tackle.

What is the missing number?

The circular arrangement is just a design feature, not part of the math.  The puzzle could also have been written out 2,3,4,5,6,8,12...?

Phrazle is a variant of Wordle

I just discovered Phrazle a couple weeks ago.  It is essentially a variant of Wordle that asks you to identify a phrase rather than a six-letter word.  For Wordle I developed a personal strategy that simplified the game to the point of rendering it not very challenging.   I decided to see if the same would apply to this one.

New Phrazles are offered every twelve hours, and each gives you six chances to guess the phrase.  Previously used phrases are compiled here; readers of The Guardian have complained that too many of the phrases are "Americanisms."  Solving a short phrase does require a bit of luck when you enter the first guess (I try to test the vowels first):

- and short phrases with repeating letters can also be difficult:

It is not necessary that your entry be an actual phrase, so in a long mystery phrase one has the opportunity to test a good proportion of the commonly-used letters -

Note that if you solve one of the words on the first try but don't know the whole phrase, you can use that space to test out other letters (see above).  Sometimes solving one word will reveal the answer, as in this case where the second word had to be "thick" -

The hardest one I have encountered was "Butterflies in my stomach" because only 11-letter words could be entered in the first spaces and I don't have a lot of those in my head.

The first time I played I failed because I was confused about the color rules, but after that it has been pretty easy...

I'm going to move on to other online games, but decided to post this for other wordsmith readers who might enjoy giving it a try.  Feel free to offer your own suggestions and data in the comments.

Difficult math puzzle

Discussion at a puzzles subreddit thread, with best explanation here.

King Williams College Christmas quiz, 2024-5

Posted today in The Guardian - several weeks ahead of schedule and catching me completely off guard.  So I will be taking some time off from blogging to work on the quiz with friends.  I'm back.  I was only able to figure out three in the whole quiz without Googling (too tough (and too British)).

Here are questions from Section 13 (of 18 total)

1. What dish is a reticulum?

2. What Irish name describes an absence?

3. Which Australian sports a silver-grey coat?

4. What did the Dutch Lakenvelder create in south-west Scotland?

5. What has a lineback and markedly overdeveloped keratin-based protuberances?

6. Identify four stiff standers, four dilly danders, two hookers, two lookers and a wig-wag.

7. What hybrid was developed from red and dun in adjacent counties?

8. What came from Heck and Hagenbeck, one from each?

9. Who righted the females from Valencia?

10. What was sourced from Teeswater? 

Clever crossword construction

I enjoy doing two crosswords every day (NYT and Los Angeles Times).  Sometimes at the end I stop to admire the skill of the constructor.  I hope this one is old enough now so that this post won't be a spoiler.

Pawn = Queen chess puzzle

This may be an old puzzle, but it's the first time I've seen it.  At the start there is a pawn in the LR corner, which needs to be moved to the far rank to get promoted to a queen; then the queen needs to be moved to the LL corner.  Good luck.  Feel free to post your times in the Comments.  

Discussion thread in the Puzzles subreddit.

Play the puzzle online here.

Math puzzle

What fraction of the image is black? 

Ignore the straight lines and express your answer as a fraction, not as a "series" extending to some asymptote.

Answer here after you kick yourself for not solving this instantly in your head.

Fiendishly difficult cryptic puzzle - updated

Every month I enjoy tackling the cryptic puzzle in Harper's magazine.  The December one that came this week is particularly frustrating.  I've figured out the 24 words in the clues, but I'm facing the task of fitting them into the dodecahedron.

The instructions note that there are 12 letters left over after "subtracting" the five-letter answers from the 6-letter answers, and those 12 letters will spell "the name of the holiday person to whom the puzzle is dedicated." (no indication whether that "name" is a proper name or an occupation or other descriptor and whether it is one word or two or three).

Here are the 12 letters: BEGIIILNNRRV

If I could figure out how to rearrange those 12 letters into a name, the rest of the solution would fall into place more easily.  Even Wordsmith's excellent Internet Anagram Server couldn't come up with any relevant one- to six-word solution - but perhaps names are not in its database.

I'd appreciate any suggestions.  [answer in the Comments]

Reposted to add another fiendish cryptic from Harper's:

I am in awe of the constructors of word puzzles like this.  To start with, the clues are cryptic:

12:  "Unlikely flier takes a long time to become one!"

The unlikely flier is a PIG ("when pigs fly...").  Add a long time (EON) to get PIGEON, which is a flier.  That goes in the hexagon numbered 12.  But... there's no way to know which of the six triangles gets the first letter, and there's no way to know whether the word turns clockwise or widdershins.

So you have to solve an adjacent hexagon clue.  Let's say you figure out clue 11, and the answer shares the letters P and I with hexagon 12.  Good.  But there's still no way to know which direction the words get entered.  So you have to solve a third adjacent clue to start fitting the words together in the grid.

These puzzles are a bit different from the traditional British cryptic grids, and are not for the faint of heart.  For an entry-level standard cryptic, I would suggest the ones posted on Sundays by The New Yorker.  That link should not be behind a paywall, you don't have to create an account, you can click the "settings" to include an "error check mode" that will alert you if you make a mistake while working the puzzle.  And best of all, when you finish (or give up), the answer key will indicate the proper construction of the cryptic entries.  Give it a try.

Reposted from 2023 to add yet another challenging cryptic puzzle grid:

This time the grid has no numbers, so there is no indication which answer goes where.  The clues are arranged in alphabetical order of their (unknown) answers.  I've been working on this for several days and after solving about half of the clues I've found two pairs that logically have to cross in the grid, but it's going to be tough sledding to get the whole grid done.  Those who want to tackle the puzzle can find the original in the May 2024 issue of Harper's Magazine (available from your library).

This is a "Scrabblegram"

Explained at The Guardian:

The Scrabblegram is a form of constrained writing in which you must write a piece of text that uses all 100 tiles in an English Scrabble set, and no other letters. The blank tiles must be used, and as per the rules can be any letter.

This example by David Cohen [embedded above] is considered one of the best examples in the genre: it is a remarkable piece of text because not only does it make sense and paint an amusing picture, but it also flows beautifully, rhymes and has the correct number of syllables for a limerick.

You can create Scrabblegrams at this link (although I haven't been able to figure our how to utilize blanks) (apparently just keep typing as long as the number of red letters doesn't exceed two).

The GCHQ Christmas Challenge

The GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) is the intelligence agency for the United Kingdom.  Each year they offer a "Christmas Challenge" to the public, with guides for teachers who might want to use the materials in classes.  A BBC article explains this year's challenge. The GCHQ 2023 Christmas Challenge, and a GCHQ page of brain teasers.

Have at it, and feel free to post partial answers and hints in the Comments.  I have not found the annual RSS quiz yet, and I'm eagerly awaiting the KWC quiz (anticipated to be published in the Guardian this week).

(The cryptogram at #7 is trivially easy) (and #1 is easy).  I'll leave the others to you.  Or view/browse the video in Bob the Scientist's comment.

World championship jigsaw puzzle competition

"Minnesota is a powerhouse in this rapidly growing cold-weather sport [speed jigsaw]. Top-ranked players come from here. The biggest competition in the country is held here. And the sport's national organization is based here...

Puzzling, it seems, thrives in places where people spend a lot of time indoors... It's no coincidence that the biggest jigsaw competition in the country, the long-running St. Paul Winter Carnival Jigsaw Puzzle Contest, draws more than 1,200 competitors to downtown St. Paul in the dead of winter... The USA Jigsaw Puzzle Association put on a national championship held last year in San Diego. And, in 2019, a World Jigsaw Puzzle Championship was started in Spain."

More information at the StarTribune.  The video I've embedded above is full-length coverage (four and a half hours) of the final rounds of the world championship; the first part covers the individual competition, which involved solving this 500 piece Ravensburger puzzle -

- shown in a cropped screencap from the video. I have tried to find a copy of this puzzle to purchase, but have had no success looking on eBay and via Google.  I did, however, find and purchase this 1000-piece puzzle which was used for the pairs competition -

- and have set it aside for a wintry day.  

The video at the top of this post is way too long for most people.  I spent probably 45 miutes speed-browsing through it.  If you would like to see some very happy puzzlers, skip to the 39:00 mark to see the winning competitor (then continue for a few minutes to see others), then skip again to the 4:10:00 mark for the finish of the pairs competition.

Here are links for the USA Jigsaw Puzzle Association and to "Wicker Kittens" - a lighthearted look at Minnesota jigsaw enthusiasts (it begins with a person who mounts completed puzzles on the walls and ceiling of his home, and includes a delightful moment (05:10) of two Minnesota girls simultaneously saying "Oh, Yah.")

Addendum:  Washington Post 2024 article on speed puzzling.

An absolutely amazing crossword construction

There are various ways in which crossword puzzles can be interesting - sometimes from the content, sometimes from the construction.  I remember one NYT crossword in which the constructor was able to incorporate the letter "Z" 40 times in the grid.  The most wickedly fiendish clue I've seen was "Line just before a comma" (7) [answer in the Comments].

The puzzle partially embedded above is from the New York Times on June 6, 2023.  The unique construction aspect will not be apparent from the blank grid, and was not evident to me after completing the puzzle - until I read the commentary at this link.  Awesome.  My cruciverbalist hat is off to Daniel Jaret, the constructor.

Trophy

My best for the NYT Saturday crossword is 7.9 minutes, keyboard, using autocheck.

Addendum January 5, 2024 - my best time ever for a Saturday NTYT puzzle:

I've been recording my times since 2020, with the idea that any upward trend in solving times might provide early evidence of the onset of dementia.  No evidence of that yet.  

Embedded cartoon from The New Yorker, IIRC.

Clickword for word puzzle enthusiasts

The Clickword daily puzzle presents you with several initial starting letters, then invites you to add twenty more groups of three to form words (detailed instructions at the link).

At the end your score is tabulated and compared to other participants.  Without knowing what letters are coming up later, there's a lot of guesswork involved in deciding whether to harvest small words or try to save for possible higher-scoring larger ones.  I presume everyone gets the same letters every day, so cheating would be possible if one collaborated with a friend.

The corollary puzzle Squareword is less challenging.

Geography game

WorLdle is not related to Wordle; they seem to have adopted the name to coat-tail on the popularity of the word game.  But it is a challenging geography game.  Six chances to guess the country from it's shape alone.  Erroneous guesses result in an arrow and distance "pointing" you toward the correct answer.  If you guess the country, you are then asked to identify all the bordering countries.  Then identify the flag and some other details.