# Questions tagged [solvability]

A question about how a puzzle can be solved.

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### Hotaru Beam Puzzle: Is it impossible?

I saw this puzzle on Twitter by user @lilva_0419 and I personally feel that it is impossible to solve. Can you prove me wrong (or right)? Source on Twitter Try it online Rules (see Wikipedia): ...
259 views

### What is the name & solution for this 33-piece 3D wooden puzzle?

I purchased this 3D wooden puzzle and wasn't provided with the instructions to reassemble it. I can't seem to find any information about it other than the source I bought it from. It has 33 pieces ...
3k views

### Is there a puzzle that is only solvable by assuming there is a unique solution?

Is it possible to construct a puzzle that is: Solvable if you assume there is a single unique solution Not solvable if you do not make this assumption My intuition says that the answer is "No&...
143 views

### Are there Sudokus that are so hard that no known logical deduction techniques can reduce it? [duplicate]

Are there Sudokus that are so hard that no known logical deduction techniques can reduce it? Maybe such a technique would reduce away multiple options?
79 views

### Methods to produce solvable deals in Klondike-solitaire?

About 20% of Klondike-solitaire deals are not solvable. My question is what are the best methods to produce only solvable deals? I thought about two options: Deal a random permutation, then try to ...
119 views

### Is this wire puzzle correctly assembled?

I was given this puzzle some years ago and have never found the solution. Recently I picked it up again and have been trying for days to solve it. I presume that the goal is to remove the ring on the ...
125 views

### Can a 10*10 binary puzzle have more than 1 solution? [closed]

I was trying to solve 10*10 binary puzzle and when I checked with the answer given in the book, the solution in it was different from mine. I did not repeat 1 or 0 more than twice in any row or column....
126 views

### Competitive puzzles

Do you know any sort of puzzles that can work in the context of a short competition? In other words, puzzles that have these features: The premise should be fairly simple to follow (but the solution ...
328 views

### Can someone solve this sudoku without trial and error?

I'm stuck on this sudoku. If anyone can solve this, then please share and explain the method that you used.
278 views

### Logical Sudoku - How to tell when fully deducted?

I'm working a program that should generate bad ass sudoku puzzles. Recently I noticed there's a thing called "logical sudoku", which means it can be logical-deducted all the way to solution. The ...
114 views

### Reapply *some* stickers on scrambled cube

I have this weird cube which have some pieces printed on the plastic and some are detachable. The cube was scrambled not solved and it fell on the floor being cheap cube almost all detachable faces ...
375 views

### Metal puzzle - Spiral and Triangle with U-Shape; Triangle with Ring at the beginning

I got the puzzle from here. Here is a picture of it: How is it possible to solve it? UPDATE: Thanks @JaapScherphuis - this is the solution:
3k views

### Best way to solve Codeword puzzle

I always find it hard to do codewords puzzles. Whenever I fill in all the spaces with the starting letters, it doesn't really help. I always end up looking at the answer sheet. Does anybody know a ...
397 views

### Help with a sudoku puzzle

I would really appreciate some help because I spent more than hours finding another number. It is supposed to be a very hard one but I started well and according to the key, my numbers are correct. Do ...
267 views

### Christmas Sentences

I've received an early Christmas gift with a combination lock and a letter containing a poem and some sentences. There are several typos: I don't believe they're intentional, but they might be. I have ...
180 views

### Stuck on (a couple of) diagramless kakuros

I was working through OAPC 6 (http://oapc.wpc2009.org/archive.php?id=46). I was having trouble with the diagramless kakuros. The rules for this puzzle are as follows: Place the numbers $1-n$ (7 and 9 ...
127 views

### Does the puzzle have a unique solution?

Let's say you have a sphere-maze. The sphere is fixed on the fixed half-ring (1) and two independent rings (2) and (3). These rings are connected at point A. Inside the sphere one can see a small ...
682 views

### Is there a way in which all the members can be seated?

Here's a puzzle where it is very difficult to find a possible seating arrangement of all the members. I have been struggling to solve it. I have devoted so much of my time trying to figure out ...
187 views

### Stuck on a Tapa (variation)

I am stuck on a Tapa puzzle. I have tried solving it a number of times and keep running into the same problems. I am starting to wonder if it is solvable at all. As far as the puzzle itself goes, best ...
168 views

### What can be the next move without guessing in this almost solved Sudoku puzzle?

I am currently stuck at this puzzle where I can't think of the next move without guessing it. I was surprised to be in this situation after solving ~70-80% of the puzzle. I thought for all possible ...
2k views

### Stuck on a puzzle

I have been working on a Knapp Daneben Tapa, where each clue is wrong by exactly one unit. I have tried it a few times and keep running into the same problem. I think I am solving it deductively/not ...
165 views

### How to solve this Rubix cube? [duplicate]

Help!!!! Is this rubix configuration solvable? These are the only two pieces in the wrong place. If the answer is no, what pieces do I need to reconfig to make the cube solvable? Note that my kid ...
842 views

### How many possible starting positions are uniquely solvable for a nonogram puzzle?

This type of puzzle goes by many names: Nonogram, Picross, and Griddlers are all mentioned on the Wikipedia page, Simon Tatham calls it Pattern, I was introduced to it as Descartes Rainbow, ... The ...
171 views

### I don’t know how to solve the last pieces

So, I almost finished a rubik’s cube, but the last 3 pieces are not in their places (green on red face, blue on green face, and red on blue face). Apart from these, the other faces are done. How can ...
247 views

### Fixing a Binairo Mistake

The rules of Binairo are simple: 1) Each row and column must have an equal number of black and white circles. 2) There can be no horizontal/vertical line of three like-color circles. Starting ...
974 views

### Tips for solving this puzzle (ring, wood and string)

After 10 years and many, many hours spent on this puzzle, I'm slowly seeing it worn out more and more. I'm completely stuck and whenever I pick this up again I end up doing the same that I've already ...
344 views

### Anyone know of an impossible, trick puzzle? [closed]

My dad really likes mechanical puzzles and has drawers full of them to show to people. My family has decided that it would be a great joke to find a new one that he hasn't seen, that is actually ...
751 views

### Number sequence solving strategies

Number sequences are one of the oldest puzzle categories in the book. You would find it hard to look through a days worth of puzzles posted here and to not find any puzzles that involve some sort of ...
1k views

### Is there an efficient algorithm for solving tiling puzzles?

As an example of the type of problem, consider Stewart Coffin's Cruiser puzzle: Let R be a 48 × 31 rectangle. Let T be a 30°-60°-90° triangle with hypotenuse 34.565 (so legs are 17.2825 and 29....
424 views

### Is solving a puzzle using uniqueness invalid? [duplicate]

(I don't know if this is appropriate to ask here, since it's a bit of a soft question about puzzles, rather than a puzzle itself. I'm not certain about the tags either.) When I was first introduced ...
206 views

### I'm not able to solve any of these puzzles. How can I get started? [closed]

I'd really like to solve a puzzle but I can never see any pattern or anything. Is there something that can teach me? I've also read about being familiar with puzzle types but I don't even know how to ...
3k views

### General strategies for solving metal disentanglement puzzles

(When I talk about metal disentanglement puzzles, I have in mind Hanayama and Tavern puzzles.) As opposed to twisty puzzles - which I can approach by playing with commutators and conjugates as a way ...
2k views

### How to solve elastic band puzzles?

There was a Puzzle competition last weekend, in which there were a couple of puzzles titled "Elastic bands". Fill in each circle with a letter so that the two networks are identical; that is, if ...
3k views

### Solving “odd one out” problems. What am I doing wrong?

I find I do very badly at word based odd-one-out-type puzzles. It generally seems to be the case (at least, in my experience) that almost any of the items can be chosen as the odd one out, and this ...
361 views

### Tony Horncastle's number

When Tony Horncastle wakes up, and sees the digital clock, he need to reach that number using 75, 25, 1, 3, 5, 7. For example, 4:37 could be (75 - 3) x (7 - 1) + 5. Tony believes that there is ...
6k views

### Strategies for solving steganography puzzles

I've seen a lot of puzzle here tagged steganography but I mostly ignored them for now because I have no idea on how to even approach these. The past days, I tried to read the answers to some of them ...
1k views

### Systematically solving a certain logic puzzle: win prize B when the truth of your statements relates to prize A

I came along this puzzle somewhere it a logic-related lecture: There are two prizes: Prize A and prize B. When you make a true statement, then you win prize A. When you make a false statement, then ...
295 views

### What is guessing? [closed]

The whole difficulty of solving puzzles like sudoku is doing it without guessing. Well, either without any guessing whatsoever or with little enough that a human can still make retractions and come to ...
1k views

### JonMark Perry's Grid Logic Puzzle

Consider the following puzzle type proposed by JonMark Perry. Start with a square grid of arrows, each one pointing in one of the four cardinal directions. For example: You start at the top left. ...
293 views

### Can the rook pass every square just once?

I had a math teacher in high school who gave us a puzzle to solve. We had to draw a chessboard with one piece that could only move in straight paths. Diagonal movement was forbidden. The goal was to ...
3k views

### Is this “Gear Turning” puzzle on Puzzlopia always solvable?

I have recently started to spend time on http://www.puzzlopia.com/ (EDIT: Site is now dead, see here: https://web.archive.org/web/20161007014010/http://www.puzzlopia.com/), which is a puzzle site. If ...
347 views

### Connect the Dots Problem

Using the image above, the rules are every dot must have a line through it, no diagonal lines, no crossing over lines, no backtracking, no going out of bounds, and no picking up the pencil to start at ...
2k views

### Can you solve the 7x7 (sudoku-ish) centered sums puzzle

I have come across this puzzle a few times in competitions and rally's, and it has troubled me because I cannot seem to find a good approach to solving it, either programmatically or numerically. And ...
4k views

### Does AAA+BBB+CCC+DDD=ABCD have a solution for distinct digits A,B,C,D?

I was asked to solve the following sum: AAA BBB CCC DDD -------- ABCD What I managed to found is that ...
339 views

### Web of Spirits - a puzzle of romance

Spirit Web: Can you figure out the interconnected web of affections among these characters using the provided clues? Basic Rules: 1: There are exactly three existing relationships. 2: No character in ...
348 views

### Alberi Puzzle, no idea where to go

The following image is a puzzle I've been stuck in for about a week now, I was wondering how to go about solving it: The way it works is that any given row, any given column and any given area has ...
392 views

### Fill up a tetris field where bordering tiles have different colors

Is it possible to completely fill the infinite tetris field $\mathbb Z^2$ with tetrominoes such that no tetromino borders another one of the same type? Assume that two tetromiones border each other ...
150 views

### Line(ish) puzzle [closed]

Is it possible to connect the opposite numbers (2 and 4, 1 and 3) simultaneously? If not, give me an explanation. Rules: 1. You can use any shape. (Torus, Möbius loop, etc.) 2. You can use any ...
5k views

### Does this metal puzzle have a solution (Baguenaudier)

When I was young I got this puzzle as a gift to me. The aim is to get the long piece out. I haven't yet found a solution, and I'm not sure if there is one Does this have a solution and if so ...
8k views

### Rubik's cube without any algorithms

I am learning to solve a Rubik's cube using some algorithms (I don't completely understand why they work). I had a Rubik's cube when I was little and I remember solving it 2-3 times without using any ...