I got bored.

http://www.neuroproductions.be/logic-la ... hp?id=1596

It seems to display in hexadecimal.

Nice job!

I found this yesterday, it might be of interest: logic.ly

It has to.

I would have loved this site back in the early 80's when I was studying boolean algebra and logic gates for my A level computer science course.

Well, you can love it now.

Logic gates made with sliding-block puzzles:

http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/b ... blocks.pdf

Bit off topic, but had to post this in response to bhearn

Logic gates made with minesweeper:
http://web.mat.bham.ac.uk/R.W.Kaye/minesw/minesw.pdf

Those are great stuff and surely not off topic.
I am moving this thread to the Non-Twisty Puzzles forum!




Pantazis

Logic gates made with TipOver, sliding-block puzzles, the Warehouseman's Problem, sliding-coin puzzles, plank puzzles, Sokoban, Rush Hour, triangular Rush Hour, hinged polygon dissections, Push-2F, Amazons, Konane, and Cross Purposes:

http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/bob/hearn-thesis-final.pdf

These people might be smarter than us, Pantazis.

Lol, nice. I now feel a bit foolish. Also lol at your your thoughts on minesweeper being NP-C. I was startled at first but continued reading and saw what you were saying. Did you intentionally plan it so that the page break was between your claim and explanation?

I haven't read the whole thing yet, but I look forward to doing so. I wish my thesis was that cool.

What are you talking about???
(sadly, only my Master's Degree in Cayley Graphs can be said to be related to puzzles,
as the PhD was in Engineering - Control Systems - but it still contained a lot of algebra!)



Bob, I was hoping you would show us your PhD Thesis, and I must say, it is quite impressive
and so unbelievably relevant with puzzles and games (in fact, I am not sure how it can become
*more* relevant!) that I really feel jealous of the examiners who were the first to go through it!!!

So I am going to grab the chance and ask you which are the best puzzle books, i.e. the
ones you would recommend for some "educational fun read"? Having as a requirement to
go through all this literature in your references, you are surely an expert to answer this!




Pantazis


*** As I have said many times, I believe all people are smart in the sense that they have a talent
in something. But finding out what that "something" is, needs a good self-search.

You're absolutely right. Just being able to is enough.

Heh. I don't recall, but I think it was coincidence.


Looks cool, I'll have to give it a read!


You would ask this now, when I'm unpacking from moving, and all my puzzle books are boxed up! So I will have to go off the top of my head. (But at least for you, Pantazis, I doubt you will find anything new here.)

I would say the first thing on anybody's list who is interested in math, games, and puzzles would have to be Winning Ways (4 volumes). This is all about the amazing and beautiful mathematics of combinatorial game theory. It turns out that, suitably defined, "number" is really a special case of "game", and one can use this generalized math to prove lots of interesting things about games. It must be said, though, that the books are almost all about 2-player games, and not puzzles; still there is enough material on puzzles to make it an essential reference.

Next, and completely unrelated, might be Stewart Coffin's The Puzzling World of Polyhedral Dissections. This is all about how to slice up polyhedra in various ways to make interesting interlocking wooden puzzles. Again, this would be the essential reference for this type of puzzle. Unfortunately the book is no longer in print, but fortunately, it is completely available online (previous link), and there is an updated edition that is in print: Geometric Puzzle Design.

Of course, one could fill a library with books by Martin Gardner (and should). But the ones to start with would be the 15 volumes of collected Mathematical Games columns from Scientific American. These are being updated with some new material and re-released as "The New Martin Gardner Mathematical Library". Unfortunately, as most of you probably know, Martin Gardner died this year, at 95. He was still working on the aforementioned updates; I'm not sure what the plan is for the remaining volumes that have not yet been updated. (In a related matter, in various locations around the world on October 21st, Martin's 96th birthday, there will be several "Celebration of Mind" gatherings to celebrate his life. I'm hosting the one in Vancouver; pm me if you are interested in attending.)

Next to Gardner's books on my bookshelf (well, in its unpacked state!) are Raymond Smullyan's books of logic puzzles. In addition to the logic puzzles, the books of retrograde chess problems (Chess Mysteries of the Arabian Knights and Chess Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes) are much more fun than conventional chess problems. (Check out the problem on the cover of Arabian Knights. It's one of my favorites.)

I'm sure there are plenty of other important puzzles books I'm forgetting at the moment. But I guess I have to close with a plug for my own book (with Erik Demaine), Games, Puzzles, and Computation. This is an updated version of my Ph.D. thesis, published by AK Peters (as is Winning Ways). In some ways the book is the opposite of Winning Ways: Winning Ways uses math to show how to play lots of games and puzzles perfectly; we use math to show that lots of games and puzzles don't have efficient solutions. What makes these so-called "negative results" fun is that, as mentioned above, they all involve building logic gadgets (of an unusual sort) out of games and puzzles. So one actually uses puzzle design to prove that games and puzzles are hard.

Thanks for this Bob! Indeed, Winning Ways is a very appropriate suggestion.
And as you correctly state in your Thesis, puzzles are one-player games.

Therefore, I may add, puzzles are a subset of games anyway!




Pantazis

1-bit adder with MEMORY BANK!!!!!

http://www.neuroproductions.be/logic-la ... hp?id=1650

Your connection will need to be pretty fast to get it to work without glitching.

How To Operate:

The two switches are the two inputs.
The bottom two lights are the output.
The top button will put whatever the answer currently is into the memory bank.
The lower button, when pressed, will show whatever answer is currently in the memory bank.
If the memory bank is opened while the input switched are still on, one of two things will happen:
Nothing will happen.
Both outputs will show 0 and the top light, the integer overflow error light, will turn on.

Have Fun!

MUCH MUCH BETTER SOFTWARE

http://www.logic.ly.com

You'll see why it's better after you've tried it.