Here it is, the puzzle that started my lifelong interest: Not the Rubik’s Cube – that’s in the picture for scale – it’s the wooden burr puzzle. It’s a simple six-piece burr puzzle, well-made (but hardly an objet d’art), and my grandmother gave it to me when I was in 5th or 6th grade. Over the years, she and others in my family contributed all kinds of different puzzles to my collection. I plan to blog about them periodically […]
MorePopp’s Tricklock T8
I’ve been meaning to post reviews of some of my favorite puzzles for a while now and Rainer Popp‘s Tricklock T8 has the honor of being my first review! I will be brief: It is really expensive. It is beautifully made. I mean it, it’s gorgeous. It is made from stainless steel, brass, and has some details (e.g., a dot of red paint) that make it look fantastic. It is precision made with high tolerances that […]
MoreMore Square Dissection Puzzles
Well, I sold my first batch of puzzles (the triangle and greek cross puzzles) and have moved on to more difficult ones. Henry Dudeney, brilliant guy that he is, came up with a dissection for turning a square into a pentagon and you can read about his method and the misprint I found in the diagram accompanying his solution here. I also found a dissection for turning a square into a hexagon by Harry Lindgren. He wrote about it […]
MoreA Note on Henry Dudeney’s Pentagon-Square Dissection
Henry Dudeney gives a method for dissecting a square so that its pieces can be rearranged to form a pentagon. I found it in a copy of Dudeney’s book “Amusements in Mathematics” on Project Guetnberg here. It is puzzle #155 (“Pentagon and Square”) and I found another copy of it here: You will notice that two points are labeled ‘F’, one inside the pentagon and one inside the square. I’m embarrassed to say it took me a good fifteen […]
MoreMy Puzzle Selling Debut!
I have to say I am very impressed with Henry Dudeney and his dissection puzzles, specifically his Triangle dissection and his Greek Cross dissection. I thought they might look cool in colored acrylic so I made a bunch and they are now available at Eureka Puzzles and LittleBits Toys. Pictures and more information are available here on my Items for Sale page.
MoreGreat Puzzle Websites
Hola! This is my first blog entry and I thought I’d start by sharing some incredibly useful websites I’ve come across over the years. In no particular order, here they are: http://home.comcast.net/~stegmann/home.htm http://www.jaapsch.net/puzzles/ http://www.puzzlepalace.com/ http://mechanical-puzzles.blogspot.com/ http://www.constantin-jean-clau.de/ http://puzzle-obsessed.blogspot.com/ http://www.puzzle-place.com/wiki/Main_Page http://smallpuzzlecollection.blogspot.com/ http://www.puzzlemad.co.uk/ http://www.puzzlewillbeplayed.com/index.html http://apuzzlingblog.blogspot.com/ http://www.chosi.org/puzzles/index.htm http://ipp30.blogspot.com/ http://allardspuzzlingtimes.blogspot.com/ http://puzzlerookie.blogspot.com/ http://superpuzzles.blogspot.com/ http://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~storer/JimPuzzles/index.html http://puzzlemuseum.com/index.htm http://www.puzzlewood.de/gallery/index.php http://www.squaring.net/index.html http://puzzling-parts.thejuggler.net/ Some of the puzzles shown on these websites are absolutely brilliant.
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