One looks a bit like a house and another is sort of corkscrew shaped; "House" and "Corkscrew." Both contain five unit cubes. One more piece is made of five unit cubes: we call it "Long." All the above pieces, and two more, cannot lie flat: those other two are shaped like "Long" but have only four unit cubes: "Short.". The last piece is four units and is flat (it also has no mirror image that differs from itself): "Flat." |
All except "Flat" have an axis that winds through the piece somewhat like the thread of a screw. We identify each piece by the handedness of this screw-thread line. Examine the above drawings, and imagine the mirror image of each piece. |
Here are the twelve different puzzles, identified
by the configurations
of Right and Left...and the number of
(known) solutions for each puzzle.
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We
can note that the easiest puzzle has all the same handedness except for
one of the Shorts.
And
the impossible puzzle has all the same handedness except for the Corkscrew.
The number of solutions is
somewhat tentative. Please let us know
if you find a different
number for any of the puzzles.
EMAIL
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