Life sometimes feels like a puzzle. We tackle the world, moving left, right, forward and backwards just to be able to find peace and possibly an answer to all the numerous questions we have.
But when you get tired of navigating these mazes, what to do? Well, some of the most influential people and famous characters like Stanley Hudson from ‘The Office’ suggest doing a puzzle.
If you are interested in getting lost in the world of puzzles, where each question does have an answer, check out these 7 most popular puzzles in the world:
1. The puzzle that helped the Britishers defeat the Nazis
In the early 1940s, the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph received a letter that challenged that if someone could solve a crossword in less than 10 minutes, the author would donate 100 pounds to charity. 25 participants were invited to the Telegraph office, and the puzzle was drawn out of a hat. Only four competitors were able to solve the cryptic puzzle in less than 12 minutes.
What’s interesting is that later the winning puzzlers received an offer letter for a job at Bletchley Park, a top-secret facility where people worked to break the Nazi codes during World War II. The puzzle was made to recruit people who would be able to crack the Nazi’s Enigma code, which the Allies did succeed in.
2. The Three Gods Riddle
When it comes to one of the hardest logic puzzles ever created, the Three Gods Riddle, written by logician Raymond Smullyan and published in 1996, definitely takes the cake. Not a lot of people have been able to answer the puzzle correctly.
3. The Octahedron Star Minx Rubik’s Cube
While the original Rubik’s cube still cannot be solved by most people even after referring to tutorials, the Octahedron Star Minx, a Rubik’s cube created by French puzzle designer Grégoire Pfennig, is one that the designer himself couldn’t solve. It has 12 sides, each in the shape of a pentagon and is one of the hardest Rubik’s cubes to solve.Image credits: Pinterest
4. Paul Lamond’s Jigsaw Puzzle
Paul Lamond’s The World’s Most Difficult Jigsaw Puzzle features the faces of Dalmatians on both sides. It’s one of the first double-sided puzzles and has 529 pieces that “seem more like 4000 pieces.”
5. The First Crossword
The first official crossword puzzle was written by a former concert violinist named Arthur Wynne and was published in The New York World in 1913. While the puzzle used one word as an answer twice and many of its clues were very covert, it pioneered the era of puzzles where they began appearing in books and newspapers.
6. Japanese Wooden Box
Japanese puzzle boxes have been a thing in the country for centuries. However, the modern complex ones were created by a man named Akio Kamei in the 1980s. They require the solver to figure out the right combination of spins, twists and turns to find hidden panels, which then have their own hidden panels. Some boxes require as many as 150 moves to be solved completely. One of the most popular puzzle boxes made by Akio is The Die Box, which requires the solver to turn the die to figure it out.
7. Sudoku Champion
Sudokus began with the name “Number Place” when they were published in the 1979 issue of Dell Pencil Puzzles and Word Games. It wasn’t until the Japanese puzzle publisher Maki Kaji renamed the puzzles to Sudoku in 1984 that they became the phenomenon they are today. From mathematic enthusiasts to old uncles in love with numbers, people across places and ages love Sudoku. Thomas Snyder is one of the most renowned Sudoku champions, and his book The Art of Sudoku has some of the most difficult Sudoku puzzles to be solved.
