- #1
adoado
- 72
- 0
Hello all,
Recently while on a 'schoolies' vacation a few friends presented a puzzle of 9 squares pieces that can be arranged into a larger 3x3 square. Each small piece had half an animal on each edge (either the head or tail, of say, a goat for a seahorse). The aim was to rotate each piece correctly so across adjacent edges an appropriate animal formed, and with this constraint arrange them all (validly!) into the 3x3 square...
It took a good 10 minutes before I completed the puzzle, more or less based on luck. It got me wondering - it is definitely a mathematical combination - so is their any way to solve this?
Is there any way of representing such a problem mathematically, whereby one can solve for the order and rotation of each piece?
Cheers,
Adrian ;)
Recently while on a 'schoolies' vacation a few friends presented a puzzle of 9 squares pieces that can be arranged into a larger 3x3 square. Each small piece had half an animal on each edge (either the head or tail, of say, a goat for a seahorse). The aim was to rotate each piece correctly so across adjacent edges an appropriate animal formed, and with this constraint arrange them all (validly!) into the 3x3 square...
It took a good 10 minutes before I completed the puzzle, more or less based on luck. It got me wondering - it is definitely a mathematical combination - so is their any way to solve this?
Is there any way of representing such a problem mathematically, whereby one can solve for the order and rotation of each piece?
Cheers,
Adrian ;)