About This Website
About This Website
This website was a result of my frustration with other logic puzzle websites.
Some of the most challenging puzzles I have encountered were spoiled, as I did not know how challenging they were. I looked at the answer without devoting an appropriate amount of thought to the problem.
That is why I have grouped my favorite logic puzzles by level of difficulty, and for some of the most difficult puzzles, allowed users to guess the answer before viewing a hint or answer.
I grouped my favorite lateral thinking problems by the type of problem, as personally I prefer problems that challenge preconceptions, or are based on fact.
I also found that many problems are stated in a manner that allow an unintended solution. So I made it easy for anyone to quickly send me feedback. I have received some very insightful feedback, which has resulted in significant refinements to many problem definitions. I am thankful to all those who sent me feedback.
Lastly, this website was an experiment in web search optimization, interface design and human interactivity. A virtual ant farm, where the challenge is not only to get the visitors visiting, but also to have the visitors stay and enjoy themselves. To that end, I tried to place all the relevant logic puzzles on a single page. While this approach seemed novel ten years ago, I have recently noticed more and more other sites mimicking this approach.
Of course, not everyone wants to sit in front of a computer. I have formatted the pages so that all the logic problems are printable, along with the solutions on the premise that there is nothing more enjoyable on a long commute than some food for the brain.
Lately I have noticed that a significant number of visitors to my site are on mobile devices. In the last few years, there has been some amazing developments in website designs that respond to the size of the device. I recently reworked this website according to the Skeleton framework.
History of Logic Puzzles
A logic puzzle is a puzzle deriving from the mathematics field of deduction.
This branch was pioneered by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who is better known under his pseudonym Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. In his book The Game of Symbolic Logic he introduced a game to solve problems such as
- Some games are fun
- Every puzzle is a game
Are all puzzles fun? Not Necessarily.
Puzzles like this, where we are given a list of premises and asked what can be deduced from them, are known as "syllogisms". Of course, this example is trivial. Dodgson goes on to construct much more complex puzzles consisting of up to 8 premises.
In the second half of the 20th century mathematician Raymond M. Smullyan has continued and expanded the branch of logic puzzles with books such as The Lady or the Tiger?, To Mock a Mockingbird and Alice in Puzzle-Land. He popularized the "knights and knaves" puzzles, which involve knights, who always tell the truth, and knaves, who always lie.
Another form of logic puzzle, popular among puzzle enthusiasts and available in large magazines dedicated to the subject, is a format in which the set-up to a scenario is given, as well as the object (for example, determine who brought what dog to a dog show, and what breed each dog was), certain clues are given ("neither Misty nor Rex is the German shepherd"), and then the reader fills out a matrix with the clues and attempts to deduce the solution. These are often referred to as "logic grid" puzzles. The most famous example may be the so-called Einstein's Puzzle, which asks the question Who Owned the Zebra?.
There are also logic puzzles that are completely non-verbal in nature. Some popular forms include Sudoku, which involves using deduction to correctly place numbers in a grid; the nonogram, also called "Paint by Numbers", which involves using deduction to correctly fill in a grid with black-and-white squares to produce a picture; and logic mazes, which involve using deduction to figure out the rules of a maze.
The difficulty level of the puzzles can vary greatly. Some are many layers deep and require extensive analysis and careful thinking to unravel; others can be relatively easy to solve. Anyone from a child to a mathematician can find a logic problem which will challenge and delight him. It is excellent training and practice in careful, precise thinking.
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