PUZZLES

I. LIFE
A. Technical (science, social science, etc)
B. Psychological (ie, people problems)

II. CREATED
A. Mental
1. Language (word) puzzles
Crosswords, Acrostics, word squares, etc.
2. Logical puzzles
Bridge crossing, truth tellers, etc,etc -- all those pencil and
paper puzzles that appear in most non-word puzzle books. Mostly
mathematical.
B. Physical (Also sometimes called "Mechanical Puzzles")
(THESE ARE THE KINDS I AM MOST INTERESTED IN, AND PROPOSE GOING INTO MORE
DETAIL ABOUT.)
1. Geometrical (including 2 and 3 dimensions; jig-saws; things like that.)
2. Topological (rope and string puzzles, that involve deformation.
Possibly including wire puzzles.)
3. Combinatorial (box filling puzzles; Rubics Cube)
4. Manipulation (dexterity?) (mazes, rolling balls, ballance puzzles)
5. Physical? Miscellaneous? (Other types, like puzzle jugs; optical
puzzles, centrifical force.)

I'll try to expand on this classification at a later time - I just want to
get something started now. You can see that there are many problems in this -
a lot of puzzles don't fit easily in any of these, and others fit clearly into
more than one. The trouble is that you can look at puzzles by their form, or
by how they are constucted, or how they are solved. And no one way seems
satisfactory for all. Anyway, following is another classification, just
of Mechanical (Physical) puzzles, by Jerry Slocum, who has one of the biggest
puzzle collections in the world.

1. PUT-TOGETHER PUZZLES - Putting the object together is the puzzle
Tangrams, jigsaw, soma, instant insanity, magic squares, puzzle rings
2. TAKE-APART PUZZLES - Taking the object apart or open is the puzzle
Trick or secret opening
3. INTERLOCKING SOLID PUZZLES - Disassembly and Assembly is the puzzle
Burrs, 3-D jigsaws, keychain, geometric object and figures (the Japenese
wooden puzzles)
4. DISENTANGLEMENT PUZZLES - Disentanglement and entanglement is the puzzle
Wire puzzles, nails, string and rope puzzles
5. SEQUENTIAL MOVEMENT PUZZLES - Moving Parts of the Object to a Goal While
Following Rules is the Puzzle
Solitaire, sliding block puzzles, rotating cube (Rubik) puzzles, maze and
route.
6. DEXTERITY PUZZLES
Rolling Ball, cup and ball, etc
7. MISCELLANEOUS
Puzzle jugs, folding, paper and card, matchstick, trick, vanish puzzles,
optical puzzles, find-the-object, rebus, reversibles, etc.
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