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puzzle

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puzzle

Not who you're looking for? Others named puzzle: 2014 film by Eisuke Naitō · album by Biffy Clyro · 2010 film by Natalia Smirnoff · album by Gianna Nannini

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What's driving coverage of puzzle right now?

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puzzle across IJR

In the Arcade

Little NovaCut the silk. Float the fallen star home.Gravity GridFill lines, swap species — and never trust which way is down.

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Overview

A puzzle is a game, problem, or toy that tests a person's ingenuity or knowledge. In a puzzle, the solver is expected to put pieces together (or take them apart) in a logical way, in order to arrive at the correct or fun solution of the puzzle. There are different genres of puzzles, such as crossword puzzles, word-search puzzles, number puzzles, relational puzzles, and logic puzzles. The academic study of puzzles is called enigmatology. Puzzles are often created to be a form of entertainment but they can also arise from serious mathematical or logical problems. In such cases, their solution may be a significant contribution to mathematical research. Etymology The Oxford English Dictionary dates the word puzzle (as a verb) to the end of the 16th century. Its earliest use documented in the OED was in a book titled The Voyage of Robert Dudley...to the West Indies, 1594–95, narrated by Capt. Wyatt, by himself, and by Abram Kendall, master (published circa 1595). The word later came to be used as a noun, first as an abstract noun meaning 'the state or condition of being puzzled', and later developing the meaning of 'a perplexing problem'. The OEDs earliest clear citation in the sense of 'a toy that tests the player's ingenuity' is from Sir Walter Scott's 1814 novel Waverley, referring to a toy known as a "reel in a bottle". The etymology of the verb puzzle is described by OED as "unknown"; unproven hypotheses regarding its origin include an Old English verb puslian meaning 'pick out', and a derivation of the verb pose.

From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Notable quotes

“"Winwood Reade is good upon the subject," said Holmes. "He remarks that, while the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty. You can, for example, never foretell what any one man will do, but you can say with precision what an average number will be up to. Individuals vary, but percentages remain constant. So says the statistician."”
— Arthur Conan Doyle, in The Sign of Four (1890), Ch. 10, p. 137; this actually differs from Reade's remarks in his The Martyrdom of Man (1872), where he states: "As a single atom man is an enigma: as a whole he is a mathematical problem."
“Only he is an artist who can make a riddle out of a solution.”
— Karl Kraus, Half-Truths and One-And-A-Half Truths (1976)
“There's something in the human personality which resents things that are clear, and conversely, something which is attracted to puzzles, enigmas, and allegories.”
— Stanley Kubrick, as quoted in Kubrick : Inside a Film Artist's Maze (2000) by Thomas Allen Nelson, p. 10
“If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think, they'll hate you.”
— Don Marquis, in archy and mehitabel (1927)
“Veronica solves little puzzles because she, like all of us, cannot unravel the bigger ones.”
— Joss Whedon Veronica Mars: The Complete First Season Reviewed by Joss Whedon

Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.

Overview

A puzzle is a game, problem, or toy that tests a person's ingenuity or knowledge. In a puzzle, the solver is expected to put pieces together (or take them apart) in a logical way, in order to arrive at the correct or fun solution of the puzzle. There are different genres of puzzles, such as crossword puzzles, word-search puzzles, number puzzles, relational puzzles, and logic puzzles. The academic study of puzzles is called enigmatology. Puzzles are often created to be a form of entertainment but they can also arise from serious mathematical or logical problems. In such cases, their solution may be a significant contribution to mathematical research. Etymology The Oxford English Dictionary dates the word puzzle (as a verb) to the end of the 16th century. Its earliest use documented in the OED was in a book titled The Voyage of Robert Dudley...to the West Indies, 1594–95, narrated by Capt. Wyatt, by himself, and by Abram Kendall, master (published circa 1595). The word later came to be used as a noun, first as an abstract noun meaning 'the state or condition of being puzzled', and later developing the meaning of 'a perplexing problem'. The OEDs earliest clear citation in the sense of 'a toy that tests the player's ingenuity' is from Sir Walter Scott's 1814 novel Waverley, referring to a toy known as a "reel in a bottle". The etymology of the verb puzzle is described by OED as "unknown"; unproven hypotheses regarding its origin include an Old English verb puslian meaning 'pick out', and a derivation of the verb pose.

From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).

A puzzle is a game, problem, or toy that tests a person's ingenuity or knowledge. In a puzzle, the solver is expected to put pieces together (or take them apart) in a logical way, in order to arrive at the correct or fun solution of the puzzle. There are different genres of puzzles, such as crossword puzzles, word-search puzzles, number puzzles, relational puzzles, and logic puzzles. The academic study of puzzles is called enigmatology.

Notable quotes

“"Winwood Reade is good upon the subject," said Holmes. "He remarks that, while the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty. You can, for example, never foretell what any one man will do, but you can say with precision what an average number will be up to. Individuals vary, but percentages remain constant. So says the statistician."”
— Arthur Conan Doyle, in The Sign of Four (1890), Ch. 10, p. 137; this actually differs from Reade's remarks in his The Martyrdom of Man (1872), where he states: "As a single atom man is an enigma: as a whole he is a mathematical problem."
“Only he is an artist who can make a riddle out of a solution.”
— Karl Kraus, Half-Truths and One-And-A-Half Truths (1976)
“There's something in the human personality which resents things that are clear, and conversely, something which is attracted to puzzles, enigmas, and allegories.”
— Stanley Kubrick, as quoted in Kubrick : Inside a Film Artist's Maze (2000) by Thomas Allen Nelson, p. 10
“If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think, they'll hate you.”
— Don Marquis, in archy and mehitabel (1927)
“Veronica solves little puzzles because she, like all of us, cannot unravel the bigger ones.”
— Joss Whedon Veronica Mars: The Complete First Season Reviewed by Joss Whedon

Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.

Not who you're looking for? Others named puzzle: 2014 film by Eisuke Naitō · album by Biffy Clyro · 2010 film by Natalia Smirnoff · album by Gianna Nannini

puzzle across IJR

In the Arcade

Little NovaCut the silk. Float the fallen star home.Gravity GridFill lines, swap species — and never trust which way is down.

Ask Genius about puzzle Create in Studio Build a game Watch videos