10 Facts (You May or May Not Have Known) About Puzzles

Today's Friday Fast Facts are from Marcel Danesi's book, The Puzzle Instinct: The Meaning of Puzzles in Human Life. Filled with information about puzzle history and close examinations of puzzle formats, Danesi's text is a fascinating must read. Sample problems, with solutions in the back of the book, also are included, making it a delightfully fun text, too! (For the full citation, please see the end of this post.) So, without further ado, here are...10 Facts (You May or May Not Have Known) About Puzzles 1) The Riddle of the Sphinx is both the first known puzzle and the first known intelligence test (p. 3).2) Crossword puzzles were invented in the 19th century by Arthur Wynne of Liverpool, England (p. 62). 3) Historically, puzzle makers have come from various discplines including art, astrophysics, and mathematics.4) The Thirty Colored Cubes Puzzle, created in 1921 by P.A. MacMahon, might be the Rubik's Cube predecessor (p. 192).5) In Lewis Carroll's classic (and contraversial) piece of children's literature, Through the Looking-Glass, the name "Alice" is hidden within an acrostic poem (p. 49).6) Four overarching categories can be used to describe most games (p.179):"movement and arrangement games""mechanical games" or "assembly games""board games""card games" or "dice games"7) Language ambiguities are a key characteristic of a type of riddle referred to as "deception puzzles" (p. 133-134). Riddles of this sort often appear to have a mathematical problem to solve; however, the challenge actually lies in recognizing the appropriate meaning of the riddle's words. 8) Over the centuries, puzzles have been associated with the occult and magic (p. 18).9) Puzzles with origins in the sixth century A.D. have been used in many introductory-level mathematics textbooks to teach current algebra techniques (p. 11).10) Uses for puzzles have included (and might still include) entertainment, intelligence testing, solving interpersonal conflicts, teaching, and research.Danesi, M. (2002). The Puzzle Instinct: The Meaning of Puzzles in Human Life. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.