Before you read the history - try out the two puzzles below! Click "scramble" then try re-arranging the numbers in the correct order. (Click on a number next to the empty space to move it.) Also, see if you can put the numbers in the green puzzle in the correct order just like the red one.
Sam Loyd (spelt with one "L") was the greatest puzzle devisor ever. An American, he lived between 1841 and 1911 and started by inventing chess problems for a local paper. Soon he got a reputation for some of the most devious and fascinating problems ever set and in particular he created a lot of maths puzzles, the most famous of which we'll look at here.
You may well have seen the little toy which has 15 squares numbered 1-15 that you can move around. Loyd's original challenge started with the squares in this pattern:
1 2 3 4 and you had to 1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8 get them into 5 6 7 8
9 10 11 12 this pattern 9 10 11 12
13 15 14 13 14 15
Sam Loyd's original version was made with 15 wooden blocks in a tray. He offered a reward of $1000 dollars to anyone who could prove they'd done it. Back in the 1870's this was a fortune! Sorry, there's no rewards here, but you can have a try with these simpler versions of the puzzle.
All sorts of people claimed they had solved the puzzle, but when they were asked to demonstrate how they'd done it (without actually picking the blocks off the tray and replacing them), none of them could do it. Apparently one clergyman spent a whole freezing winter night standing under a lampost trying to remember what he'd done to get it right.OTHER THINGS TO TRY:
See if you can make any of these patterns:
1 4 7 3 6 3 2 1 6 3
2 5 8 2 5 8 6 5 4 8 5 2
3 6 1 4 7 8 7 7 4 1
You should find that you can make any pattern with either the red OR the green puzzle, but NEVER with both!
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The puzzles were programmed by Davey Erwin using Dan Steinman's Dynapi code.
This clever stuff comes from
The JavaScript Source