Sam Lloyd's 14-15 puzzle is a representative sliding puzzle.
The original idea for this puzzle was created by Noyes Palmer Chapman, the postmaster general of Canastota, New York.
However, it gained explosive popularity when Sam Lloyd announced
that he would give a $1,000 prize for a newspaper column.
Lloyd was a truly original and ingenious puzzle writer.
Lloyd unearthed a buried and difficult mathematical problem, understood its essence, and then
We made it into a problem that anyone can enjoy easily and with fun.
Isn’t this the dream of every math teacher?
Lloyd recreated such content so naturally and presented it to the public
that everyone enjoyed it as if they were watching magic.
As media such as newspapers and magazines grew significantly in the late 19th century,
Intellectual entertainment was also undergoing a major transformation.
At this time, the puzzle era began.
A store owner who solves puzzles all day without even opening the store.
A pastor who is lost in a puzzle and spends the night under a streetlamp in the cold winter looking for a solution.
The captain ran the cargo ship aground because he was so absorbed in the puzzle.
The driver who got caught up in the puzzle and caused the train to pass the station, etc.
This is a picture of people who fell into the joy of thinking in the early 1900s.
The world has changed a lot in 2024.
However, we have a way to view it much more conveniently and easily than books.
The means of access have changed, but why not immerse yourself in the joy of thinking?
The sliding puzzle that the store owner saw in the middle was a problem that could not be solved.
In the same way, you can't empty the bottom right and sort the numbers.
That's why we put up a prize of $1,000, which was a huge amount of money at the time.
“If the number of parts that need to be replaced is an even number,
it can be arranged as it was, but if it is an odd number, it cannot be arranged in its original state.”
14 and 15 are swapped, and the number of parts that need to be replaced is 1,
so you can see that it is impossible to arrange them as they were originally.
Therefore, even when you see another 15 puzzle,
you can determine whether it is an impossible problem or not by checking the number of prosthetic parts
that need to be replaced.
This problem can be rearranged by changing the position of the empty space.
Even though you have to move it 44 times, it's okay.
I even made a moving video on YouTube myself. (link)
It was Sam Lloyd's famous 15 puzzles that created problems that anyone could enjoy easily and with fun.
thank you
