Category Archives: Puzzles

Puzzle #200: Achieve your GOAL

Posted on October 29, 2017 by Alok Goyal

Its been nearly 5 years since I started posting puzzles, and today is the 200th puzzle. I have thoroughly enjoyed posting puzzles, hearing from so many of you, especially some amazing children over the years. But its time for a … Continue reading →

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Puzzle #199: Two-Cube Calendar

Posted on October 22, 2017 by Alok Goyal

Every time you pick up a Martin Gardner book, there is still always a wonderful puzzle that one has not seen. This one is an original Martin Gardner puzzle, i.e. this is his own creation, published in the book The … Continue reading →

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Puzzle #198: The Neural Network Puzzle

Posted on October 15, 2017 by Alok Goyal

Thanks to my INSEAD friend Sergio Werner for pointing me to a new source of puzzles and science articles – http://www.quantamagazine.org. I am reproducing a puzzle posted there by Pradeep Mutalik. Neural networks and deep learning are the buzzwords of … Continue reading →

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Puzzle #197: 10 Friends

Posted on September 24, 2017 by Alok Goyal

This is a very common puzzle, many variants of which one would have. I still like it as the answer is very elegant, and teaches children a methodology. This one is from Mathematical Circles (Russian Experience) by Dmitri Fomin, Sergey … Continue reading →

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Puzzle #196: Bugs on a Board

Posted on September 17, 2017 by Alok Goyal

Yet another very fine puzzle from A Moscow Math Circle: Week by Week Problems by Sergey Dorichenko. Each square of a 9 x 9 board has a bug sitting on it. On a signal, each bug crawls onto one of … Continue reading →

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Puzzle #195: 1989!

Posted on September 10, 2017 by Alok Goyal

This is a beautiful puzzle from Mathematical Circles (Russian Experience) by Dmitri Fomin, Sergey Genkin and Ilia Itenberg. There numbers 1, 2, 3, ….. , 1989 are written on a blackboard. It is permitted to erase any two of them … Continue reading →

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Puzzle #194: Adjacent Cells On a Chessboard

Posted on September 2, 2017 by Alok Goyal

This is another beauty of a puzzle from A Moscow Math Circle: Week by Week Problems by Sergey Dorichenko. The numbers from 1 to 64 have been placed in each square on a chessboard such that each number appears exactly … Continue reading →

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Puzzle #193: Smallville Telephones

Posted on August 27, 2017 by Alok Goyal

This is a relatively simple puzzle from Mathematical Circles by Dmitri Fomin, Sergey Genkin and Ilia Itenberg. Please do share this with your children, they should enjoy this. In Smallville, there are 15 telephones. Can they be connected by wires … Continue reading →

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Puzzle #192: Too Many 6’s

Posted on August 20, 2017 by Alok Goyal

This is another beautiful puzzle from A Moscow Math Circle, Week by Week Problem Sets by Sergey Dorichenko. The puzzle will require some manipulation of numbers, but is very solvable and you will be happy that you did it once … Continue reading →

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Puzzle #191: 1×4 Rectangular Stone Plates

Posted on August 13, 2017 by Alok Goyal

This is a gem of a puzzle from A Moscow Math Circle, Week by Week Problem Sets by Sergey Dorichenko. Can a 10×10 square be paved with 1×4 rectangular stone plates? As always, please send your answers as comments within … Continue reading →

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