“He who wonders discovers that this in itself is a wonder” – M. C. Escher
Today’s puzzle is an original puzzle which I believe to be very challenging. I call them Self-Referential Puzzles. They are similar to the Number Sense Puzzles (from yesterday) in that you are given a statement for which you find a number. The difference is that in Self-Referential Puzzles, the statement refers to the statements in the puzzles. What’s that mean? Well, in Number Sense Puzzles, statements were something like “Number of quarts in a gallon” which is always 4 (it never changes). In Self-Referential Puzzles, the statement may be something like “The number of even number solutions”. Well this is all together different because when a solution is changed it may impact and change some or even all of the other solutions.
So, the important thing to remember is that when you enter or change a number in the puzzle it is very likely to effect other numbers. In turn, the other numbers may change which will likely effect other numbers. And this goes on and on! That’s the beauty of the puzzle – changing one answer may change all of the answers!
I’ve put together an interactice “drag and drop” puzzle sampler that has six different self-referential puzzles. As always with my interactive puzzles, you will need to be able to access Adobe Flash. Each puzzle has it’s own set of directions and numbers that can be used.
Good Luck and pass the puzzles onto others who may enjoy them!
Tags: Number Sense, Self Reference