On June 8, I published a couple of figures which can be made with the plastic snake puzzle of Clown Games, and 5 years ago I wrote about another one.
My wife Jos and our daughter Margreet made a cpouple of new figures, which are too goof not to share with you, especially as some of the recent ones are real gems.
This puzzle was inspired by a puzzle in one of the many Mensa puzzle books, “”Logic brainteasers”, by Philip Carver and Ken Russell.
You can check your solution here
If you think that most of the original puzzles types are published in magazines or on blogs like this one, you may be wrong. In my experience, I discover most new puzzle types in apps.
Recently my wife asked me for assistance in solving a level of Frog Logic. It was a pretty tough level to jump into, and it took a couple of weeks before I decided to install it myself.
Let me post a screenshot of a level:
The object is to clear all leaves. The frog jumps from leave to leave, sinking the leaf it departs from. It may jump only horizontally and vertically, not diagonally. It may jump straight ahead, or turn 90 degrees, but it may not turn 180 degrees. The puzzle is finished if all leaves have been visited.
I can wholeheartedly recommend this app: tough puzzles, built up gradually, simple rules, original puzzle type, and not too many adds.
You can check your solutions here
| Aspect | Score (1=least – 5=best) | Remarks |
| Rules of puzzle type clear | 5 | Original puzzle type |
| Toughness | 4 | Good challenges, gradually becoming tougher. |
| Price / adds | 5 | Free, and not too many adds |
| Number of puzzles | ? | Not sure how many puzzles there are |
I hope to review more puzzle apps in the future.
1) Three squares**/*****
On twitter I found the account of a very kind and smart lady called Catriona Shearer, who poses a lot of very nice and original math problems. One problem is reproduced here with her permission. In the figure above, the sides of the three squares are three consecutive integers. The length of the black line is 4√10.
What’s the total area?
You can check your solution here
2) Four squares***/*****
The puzzle above inspired me to the following puzzle:
The length of the sides of the three smaller squares are all natural numbers – integers if you prefer that term. The length of the side of the big square is 6√10.
What is the size of the three small rectangles?
New puzzles are published at least twice a month on Fridays. Solutions are published after one or more weeks. You are welcome to remark on the difficulty level of the puzzles, discuss alternate solutions, and so on. Puzzles are rated on a scale of 1 to 5 stars.
You can check your solution here
1) Adding a nine***/*****
22 = 4. Writing a 9 after it, I get 49 which is 72
42 = 16. Writing a 9 after it, I get 169 which is 132
What is the next square number, which, when adding a 9 after the number, is a square?
You can check your solution here
New puzzles are published at least twice a month on Fridays. Solutions are published after one or more weeks. You are welcome to remark on the difficulty level of the puzzles, discuss alternate solutions, and so on. Puzzles are rated on a scale of 1 to 5 stars.
Resolf puzzles consist of four triangles, with three numbers at the corners of each triangle and the sum of the three numbers in the center.
I first encountered them in a publication by Sanders Puzzles.
An example of a solved resolf looks like this:
Nr 1*/*****
Use the numbers listed below the triangle to make the sums
Sanders puzzles regularly also uses multiplcation:
Nr 2**/*****
And one can extend this machanism to all 40 basic arithmetic operations:
Nr 3***/*****
You can check your solution here
New puzzles are published at least twice a month on Fridays.
On June 15, I published an 8 question test with alternate geography questions. Here is a short bonus. As in the previous test, the questions are replicated for several continents
After writing it, I discovered “World Geography” in the Android play store. It featured a series of different question types, some traditional, others less common, such as:
a) With a map of the continent shown, and one country highlighted, what is the name of this country?
b) With just the silhouette of the country shown, what is the name of this country?
c) What is the capital of a country?
d) Of which country is this the flag? (flag depicted)
e) how many inhabitants does a country have (<1 million, <10 million, <100 million, >100 million)
Here are some questions. Unlike my previous quiz, the questions are not by continent, but are worldwide.
1) Which islands are depicted?
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2) Name the countries which belong to these flags:
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3) Rank these cities from North to South:
Beijing, Berlin, Moscow, and Washington
4) Rank the following countries according to number of inhabitants:
Canada – Bangla Desh – France – Egypt
5) Rank the cities from least to most annual rainfall
Los Angelos – Washington – Madrid – Cairo – Tokyo
6) In which countries do these rivers have their origin?
Amazon – Nile – Donau – Mekong
I would like to thank user Rei-artur of wikimedia commons for releasing the first of the island maps above.
You can check your solutions here. I strongly advise you to write down all your answers before checking them.
1) 3-1=8?***/*****
Please correct the following equation by moving two matchsticks:
You can check your solution here
New puzzles are published at least twice a month on Fridays.
justpuzzles 