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Logic puzzles

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A logic puzzle is a puzzle (Links to an external site.) deriving from the mathematics (Links to an external site.) field of deduction (Links to an external site.).

Contents

1 History (Links to an external site.)

2 Logic grid puzzles (Links to an external site.)

3 See also (Links to an external site.)

4 External links (Links to an external site.)

History

The logic puzzle was first produced by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Links to an external site.), who is better known under his pen name Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Links to an external site.). In his book The Game of Logic he introduced a game to solve problems such as confirming the conclusion "Some greyhounds are not fat" from the statements "No fat creatures run well" and "Some greyhounds run well". Puzzles like this, where we are given a list of premises and asked what can be deduced from them, are known as syllogisms (Links to an external site.). 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 (Links to an external site.) has continued and expanded the branch of logic puzzles with books such as The Lady or the Tiger? (Links to an external site.), To Mock a Mockingbird (Links to an external site.) and Alice in Puzzle-Land. He popularized the "knights and knaves (Links to an external site.)" puzzles, which involve knights, who always tell the truth, and knaves, who always lie.

There are also logic puzzles that are completely non-verbal in nature. Some popular forms include Sudoku (Links to an external site.), which involves using deduction to correctly place numbers in a grid; the nonogram (Links to an external site.), 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 (Links to an external site.), which involve using deduction to figure out the rules of a maze.

Logic grid puzzles

Example logic puzzle grid, with the information that only Simon is 15 and Jane does not like green filled in.

Another form of logic puzzle, popular among puzzle enthusiasts and available in magazines (Links to an external site.) 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 Zebra Puzzle (Links to an external site.), which asks the question Who Owned the Zebra?.

Common in logic puzzle magazines are derivatives of the logic grid puzzle called "table puzzles" that are deduced in the same manner as grid puzzles, but lack the grid either because a grid would be too large, or because some other visual aid is provided. For example, a map of a town might be present in lieu of a grid in a puzzle about the location of different shops.

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