Number Puzzles

Found some great number puzzles on the Internet.

Bridges
Dominosa
Light-up
Loop
Nonograms
Nurikabe
Shikaku
Sudoku

Drunk Men Work Here

This is a very interesting website. Problems 170 and 129 are a couple of great logic games.

How online games are solving uncomputable problems

Online games that tap your brainpower without you noticing can crack problems that have defeated the most powerful computers, says Lewis Dartnell. Get involved with distributed computing with these online games and downloads.

Click here for more information.

Rubik’s Cube Proof Cut to 25 Moves

Last year, a couple of fellas at Northeastern University with a bit of spare time on their hands proved that any configuration of a Rubik’s cube could be solved in a maximum of 26 moves.

Now Tomas Rokicki, a Stanford-trained mathematician, has gone one better. He’s shown that there are no configurations that can be solved in 26 moves, thereby lowering the limit to 25.

Full article here.

Secret Websites, Coded Messages: The New World of Immersive Games

Interesting story on how the music group Nine Inch Nails encoded a few hidden messages in one of their tours and albums.

To play it on the Wired site, select all text in each section (two sections) up to the input boxes of that section (or do the entire page at once) and paste it into Microsoft Word. Remove all formatting that has Font Color equal to Automatic and only the colored text remains. What the sentences mean and which ones to use, with punctuation, should become obvious.

Sliding Block Puzzles

Very challenging sliding-block puzzles at PuzzleBeast.

Mind and Visual Puzzles

Archimedes' Laboratory provides puzzles, brain teasers, and mental activities to keep your brain young and active.

Puzzlers Paradise

Puzzlers Paradise is a website with some great, interactive, logic puzzles.

Scientist Solves Rubik's Cube In 26 Moves

It’s a toy that most kids have played with at one time or another, but the findings of Northeastern University Computer Science professor Gene Cooperman and graduate student Dan Kunkle are not child’s play. The two have proven that 26 moves suffice to solve any configuration of a Rubik's cube – a new record. Historically the best that had been proved was 27 moves.

Rubik's Cube, invented in the late 1970s by Erno Rubik of Hungary, is perhaps the most famous combinatorial puzzle of its time. Its packaging boasts billions of combinations, which is actually an understatement. In fact, there are more than 43 quintillion ($4.3252 \times 10^19$) different states that can be reached from any given configuration.

Full article here.

Burr Tools

For people too lazy to solve puzzles themselves, you can use Burr Tools to help solve them for you. This tool is also useful for looking at three-dimensional orthogonal projections.

MathsNet

MathsNet is an interactive website for learning mathematics. They also have a wide variety of mathematical games and puzzles.