Category Archives: Puzzles

Puzzle #139: Gold Links

Posted on April 23, 2016 by Alok Goyal

This is another famous puzzle in the Martin Gardner collection, and variations of this puzzle exist in different “sizes”. This particular one has been picked up from The Colossal Book of Short Puzzles and Problems, Puzzle 9.18. Replicating the puzzle as … Continue reading →

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Puzzle #138: Traffic Flow in Floyd’s Knob

Posted on April 16, 2016 by Alok Goyal

This is a very nice “maze” puzzle, borrowed from Martin Gardner’s book “The Colossal Book of Short Puzzles and Problems” Problem 10.14. The puzzle first appeared in 1962, in Martin Gardner’s Scientific American column. It was created by Robert Abbott, … Continue reading →

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Puzzle #137: Burning Island

Posted on April 10, 2016 by Alok Goyal

For a change, this one is not a mathematical puzzle, but a nice logic puzzle (and there is no play of words here). I took this one from mathsisfun.com A man is stranded on an island covered in forest. One … Continue reading →

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Puzzle #136: Talkative Eve

Posted on April 3, 2016 by Alok Goyal

Another beautiful puzzle from one of the Martin Gardner collections – this one is from “Mathematical Circus” in a chapter titled “Eccentric Chess and Other Problems”.  I am reproducing this verbatim from his collection. This cryptarithm (or alphametic, as some … Continue reading →

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Puzzle #135: Two Dice = Nine Cards

Posted on March 20, 2016 by Alok Goyal

This is a gem of a puzzle from Gurmeet.net, one of my favourite collection of puzzles! Alice has two standard dice with labels 1 thru 6. When she rolls them and adds their labels, she gets a distribution over integers … Continue reading →

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Puzzle #134: Rotating Coins

Posted on March 13, 2016 by Alok Goyal

This is a gem of a problem pointed to me by an avid puzzler and an IITD friend (now in Philippines) – Girish Tutakne. Thanks Girish. Even though I know the answer, it still baffles me! Suppose we have 2 … Continue reading →

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Puzzle #133: Find the Letters

Posted on March 6, 2016 by Alok Goyal

This is a cute problem, a relatively easy one, from Brilliant.org. For those of you who have stopped sharing the puzzles with children, might be a good idea to share this one, I think most kids can do this with … Continue reading →

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Puzzle #132: Boys, Girls and Pennies

Posted on February 29, 2016 by Alok Goyal

This is a very nice puzzle borrowed from Alok Mittal’s Mathematical Circles class. Five boys and five girls found five pennies. It was decided to arrange the group in circle, and count out individuals at fixed intervals, giving them a … Continue reading →

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Puzzle #131: The Pyramid Problem

Posted on February 21, 2016 by Alok Goyal

This is a beautiful geometry puzzle contributed by my nephew, Karan Sharma. The puzzle originally appeared in a PSAT exam in 1980, and was not really a “puzzle” until one student proved that there was a different answer than what … Continue reading →

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Puzzle #130: The Plato Riddle

Posted on February 14, 2016 by Alok Goyal

I am on a roll here with the old-time biggies, after Einstein we have Plato now! This is a beautiful puzzle and riddle contributed by Sirisha Gadepalli, an IIT Campus friend – thank you Sirisha! Here it goes: Aristotle was … Continue reading →

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