Rope puzzles for adults. Rope puzzles. Such different "eights"

This is a fun and simple project. The goal of this rope puzzle is quite simple: remove the large ball from the puzzle. You may notice that the solution is similar to the puzzle I posted a few weeks ago. In terms of materials, I used a piece of wood, wooden beads, a rope, and a plastic ball removed from an old children's toy. Please note that I am not the author of any of these puzzles. Don't try to find the authors of these puzzles, they were invented over 500 years before patent protection.

Unfortunately, I am giving a solution by showing you how to disassemble the puzzle. As a challenge, try to figure it out from this picture. After you finish dismantling, or abandon the venture, watch the video to see how the puzzle is solved and how to reset it for the next person.

Step 1: Tools and Materials

Tools:

Hacksaw
Drill or drilling machine
Drills (1/2 "and 1")
Sander
Ruler
Pencil
Scissors
Lighter

Materials:

Wood: 6 "long, 2" wide, 1/8 "to 3/4" thick
Cord: 5/32 "diameter x 36" length
Wood Beads: 3/4 "OD, 3/16" ID (x2)
Ball (1.5 "diameter) or block (1.5" cube), with a 1/2 "hole through the center

Step 2: block puzzle with ropes

Cut block 6 "x2". Thickness doesn't matter. I used a 3/4 "thick piece of wood. Drill the holes in the block as shown. Sand the sharp edges. I also recommend chamfering and sanding the holes on the inside so that the rope can slide freely.

Step 3: Pull the rope through the first hole

Step 4: Thread the rope through the middle hole

Step 5: Pull the rope through the last hole

Step 6: countersink the beads

I used a drill to enlarge the countersink on one side of each bead. They are needed to hide the knot of the rope. Note that this picture shows both sides of one bead.

Step 7: hiding the ends of the rope in the beads

Tie knots at the ends of the rope. Press the knots into the bore holes. Cut off the exposed ends of the rope. Use a lighter to scorch the ends of the rope.

Step 8: The rope puzzle is now ready to add the ball

Step 9: Pull out the rope as shown

Step 10: Thread the rope through the ball

Step 11: Thread the rope through the hole on the side of the beads

Wrap the string around the bead.

Step 12: throw the puzzle rope over the ball

Then pull the loop through the hole back to the ball. Toss the rope to the opposite side of the ball to add more trickery to the puzzle.

Step 13: final photography

Enjoy your rope puzzle!

Step 14: a similar version of the puzzle

The previous version of the rope puzzle is shown here.

Based on materials from www.instructables.com

KNOTS OF KING GORDI

Lace (rope) puzzles and games are among the most ancient. An old legend tells that almost a thousand years BC lived Gordius, king of Phrygia, a region in ancient Asia Minor. He built the city of Gordion - his capital, and in it the temple of Zeus. Shortly before his death, Gordius donated a chariot to the temple. According to the legend, a yoke was tied to the chariot with a very complex knot. After the death of Gordius, the oracle predicted that the person who would be able to untie the knot of Gordius and free the yoke in order to harness the horse to the chariot would become the ruler of the world.

Gordius died in 738 BC. For more than 400 years the chariot stood in the temple, and the king's knot remained tied. In 334, the troops of Alexander the Great entered the city of Gordion. When the inhabitants of the city told Alexander that, according to the oracle's prediction, the one who untied the tangled knot would conquer Asia, he was seized with a passionate desire to achieve the fulfillment of the prediction.

As the Roman historian Curtius Rufus testifies, a crowd of Phrygians and Macedonians gathered around the king: the former waited tensely, and the latter felt fear due to the reckless self-confidence of the king. Indeed, the belt was so tightly knotted that it was impossible to calculate or see where the plexus begins and ends. The king's attempts to untie the knot instilled fear in the crowd that failure might turn out to be a bad omen. Having fiddled with these tangled knots for a long time and in vain, the king said that it makes no difference in what way they will be untied, and having cut the knots with a sword, he either laughed at the oracle's prediction or fulfilled it.

Thousands of years ago, people came up with various ways of tying knots. The skilled craftsmen of antiquity were also the first inventors of rope puzzle games. After sitting for an hour over such a puzzle (and not solving it), you will undoubtedly feel respect for the mind of its inventor. There are several hundred known puzzles like the Gordian knot, in which you need to untangle ropes or separate connected parts. In ancient times, they were used not only as ingenious toys, but also as tasks to test the skill of ancient shipbuilders, weavers of mats and baskets, and builders of dwellings. We will introduce you to some of these puzzles. Let's start with the simpler ones both to manufacture and to solve.

Puzzle toys made of buttons and threads

You can find threads and old buttons in any home. These ordinary things are easy to make entertaining puzzle games (fig. 1)

Almost all puzzles require one thing: to disconnect the interlocking pieces. At first glance, this task may seem insurmountable. Attempts to disengage the loops often lead to the fact that the threads are even more entangled with each other. Do not despair. In 1983, at the competition for inventors of puzzles held by the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, experienced members of the jury, trying to solve one lace puzzle, tangled the ropes so that the author of the toy himself could not unravel them. In such cases, it is easier to cut the lace or, having untied the knot, disassemble the puzzle into pieces and reassemble it correctly.

And yet, learning how to solve such problems is not so difficult. Without giving here an exact description of the solution to each puzzle, we will tell you about the general rule that allows you to solve any puzzle of this type.

First, take a close look at the drawing and try to solve the puzzle in your head. For this, the loop in Fig. Pull "D" along the thread for which it is hooked, and without twisting it, push it into all the holes encountered. When you reach the end of the thread, go around the small button at the end and pull the buttonhole back through all the holes. As a result, the loop will be on the other side of the thread, that is, it will be detached from it.

But you cannot blindly follow this rule either. For example, when solving the puzzle shown in fig. "D", the loop does not need to be pushed through the holes in the adjacent buttons, but the button must be passed through the loop.

picture "A": Free the left button from the string
picture "B": unhook the red button
pattern "B": untangle the threads and release the four buttons
pattern "D": move the left button along the thread close to the right button
pattern "D": release the buttonhole with the small button from the rest of the buttons

It is best to take large buttons and thick threads. The holes in the buttons should be enlarged by reaming them with a file or reaming them. In the absence of tools, the holes in the buttons are widened using ordinary sharp scissors.

When assembling toys, you must be extremely careful and accurate. It is enough to link the threads incorrectly in one place, and the puzzle will not be possible to solve, or, on the contrary, the solution will be too simple.

If you are comfortable with the puzzles shown in the pictures, try creating your own. At the same time, you can increase the number of buttons, interlocking loops, change the path of the threads.

Funny figurines

All sorts of entertaining puzzles can be made from scraps of solid wires in colored insulation. Some of these puzzles are shown in Fig. 2. To make them, it is necessary to maintain the proportions of the figures and the length of the ropes strictly according to the drawing. For example, "mice" should be larger than the "cat's" foot. But the loop at the end of the lace should be larger than the "mouse". The lace is selected so thick that it passes freely through the wire loops.

It is not necessary to repeat the figures shown in the figure. Come up with your own. If you can manage to get a new, more cunning weave of ropes, it will be a new original puzzle.

How do you solve these puzzles? If you have mastered the puzzle toys made of buttons and threads well, it will not be difficult for you to solve puzzles with figures.

Let's start with the "ducklings" (fig. "A" and "B"). Two ducklings can be freed in one way. The loop that covers the lace is pulled along this lace, pushing it through all the obstacles encountered, for example, the legs of a "goose". Having reached the end of the lace, they push a tied flower or fungus into the loop. After that, pulling the loop to the old place, release it from the legs of the "duck".

In the same way, the “little mice” caught by the “cat” (“G”), as well as the “duckling” Tim (“B”) are released.

Three "ducklings" tied with one rope seem to be impossible to free ("D"). But this is not the case. Pull the loop that tightens the legs of any duckling along the parallel laces and pass the other two ducklings through this loop. Unexpectedly for yourself, you will find that one "duckling" is free. The rest of the "ducklings" are released in the same way.

Having understood the secret of this toy, you yourself will be able to free the "bunnies" from the "fox" and "duck" with a "caterpillar" from the "hedgehog" (Fig. 3).

It is more difficult with the funny figures "Vanya" and "Masha" (Fig. 4). First, you need to disconnect the loops coming from the hands of "Vanya" and "Masha". To do this, one of the loops, for example the one held by "Masha", is passed through the sleeve of "Vanya", the fungus is passed through it and the loop is pulled back. In order to separate the loops connecting the legs of "Vanya" and "Masha", one of the loops, for example, coming from the legs of "Vanya" (let's call it loop B), is passed from above into a loop tied around the right leg of "Masha", thread the right her shoe through loop B, pull the loop back, thread loop B from above into the loop tied around Masha's left leg, thread it through loop B in Masha's left shoe, pull the loop back and pull loop B up, passing the whole figure through it. Masha. " Puzzle solved

Such different "eights"

Each of the three puzzles shown in fig. 6 is in the shape of a "figure eight". The tasks of these puzzles are the same - to release the laces caught in the wire. But this is where their similarities end. The "eights" have different complexity and different ways of solving problems.

One of these puzzles has already been reported in print and has become famous. Which of the three - you have to guess for yourself. Several years ago, it was invented by the American inventor Steford Coffin, and since then it has been regularly written about in collections of puzzles published in different countries. The publications of the Coffin puzzle are accompanied by pictures showing the course of the solution, the publications describe in detail how to move the lace and under what circumstances the inventor came up with the toy. A textual explanation usually ends with the words that as a result of all actions the lace will either become free or not and that no one has yet been able to prove the impossibility of this. This vague final phrase hides the secret of the puzzle: it turns out that it cannot be solved ...

Which of the puzzles belongs to Coffin, you will know if you can unhook the laces from two of the three "eights" shown in the picture.

How to do it?

From our school years, we know that the easiest way to solve a problem is by looking at the answer. But this is also the most uninteresting way. One self-solved puzzle provides more value and joy than a dozen problems with known answers. In this case, the solution to the "eights" is not at the end of the book, as is the case in school textbooks, but on the previous pages, on which we taught you to unravel the secrets of funny figures and puzzles made of buttons and threads.

The puzzles in question or the like are easy to make. For this, any wire or single-core wire with a diameter of 1 to 5 mm is suitable. The sizes of "eights" can be any, it is only important that they are comfortable to hold in your hands and that the laces are easily threaded through the loops. The wire can be bent on a blank or template of a suitable diameter. The length of the lace for the loops should be about twice the height of the "figure eight"

"Stars" from the puzzle exhibition

In the spring of 1984, the first All-Union student exhibition-fair was held in Novocherkassk. Novocherkassk is a city of students, there are several thousand of them here. A huge hall with exhibits was filled with inquisitive, noisy, cheerful youth. Each stand had a lot of visitors, regardless of whether it was showing a micromoped, an air cushion platform, fashionable clothes or paintings by emerging artists. But one stand still enjoyed particular popularity among visitors of all ages and professions: it featured dozens of various puzzle toys sent from all over the country. Those interested could try their hand at solving puzzles. Some of the games could even be carried away with you on one condition ... if you managed to solve the puzzle. Here visitors were invited to make puzzles.

Some people think that hard-to-solve games must necessarily be difficult to make. It's not like that at all. The fair featured ingenious toys made from ordinary wire scraps and pieces of string. The puzzle "Two stars" aroused the greatest interest among all. You can see it in fig. 7. To solve this puzzle, you must unhook the shuttle from the cord and stars.

To make a toy, you can cut any wire with a thickness of 0.5 to 2 mm or a single-core wire stripped of insulation. In addition, you will need pieces of lace or thick thread. Tool - regular pliers with nippers and round nose pliers. The puzzle should be beautiful, then it will be pleasant to hold in your hands, you can even use it as a gift.

Transfer the drawing of the star from this article to plain squared notebook paper. Make a toy template. To do this, place the star pattern on a piece of board and mark with a pencil the holes for the pins. Take nails 1 to 2 mm thick and shorten them by chopping off the ends. The resulting pins, the length of which should not exceed 15-20 mm, drive into the centers of the holes marked on the board. The pins should be no more than 5 mm above the board. The nail heads should be on the back of the board. The general view of the template is shown in Fig. eight:

Prepare pieces of wire 30 cm long. Straighten the wire thoroughly and sand it to a shine with sandpaper (you can also use various household powders and pastes for cleaning). Place a piece of wire around the pins of the template.

At the same time, try to stretch the wire as much as possible, then the rays of the star will be straight and beautiful. Having removed the star from the pins, bend the rings at the ends of the wire, remove the excess ends of the wire with pliers. Straighten the star completely with pliers and check the quality of your work by placing the star on the drawing on checkered paper. It is better to bend the rings and the shuttle on round and oval blanks of suitable size. The assembly and connection of individual parts of the toy is carried out according to the drawings, observing all the indicated dimensions as accurately as possible.

Now we need to solve the puzzle - to unhook one element (shuttle) from another (stars). We will not give a detailed solution again. Here are just three rules, observing which you can solve the problem.

Rule one: think first, then act. You can unhook one element from another only in those places where the pieces of the puzzle end, for example, where the rings of the star are bent. This is where you must try to remove the shuttle.

Rule two: try mentally (or on a model) to replace the rigid parts of the puzzle with flexible ones. For example, instead of wire, take a soft wire and make a star out of it. In the process of solving, straighten them, then the puzzle will be solved very simply. Think about why a flexible puzzle is easy to solve. How to get around this difficulty for a hard puzzle?

Rule three: if the problem is not solved, try changing it to the opposite. You need to separate the shuttle from the star. Take another shuttle and slide it over the star. If you are attentive and patient, be sure to solve the puzzle.

African puzzle

Look at fig. 9 and answer the question: how does the "puppy" get to the bone? This problem can be solved in different ways. For example, pull out one of the nails, untie any knot, or disassemble a fence. Finally, you can move the bowl closer to the "puppy". But are such solutions always acceptable? After all, the fence and nails can be very strong, the knots can be strong, and the bowl cannot be moved.

How to be?

This problem has a very original solution: the "puppy" reaches the bowl without breaking the connection between objects. Outwardly, everything looks as if the "dog" managed to crawl through the bracket in the middle of the fence and get over to the right side of the rope. Although the bracket is too small for the "puppy" to crawl through it. The solution to the problem was found many years ago by the ancient inhabitants of Africa.

Various rope games and puzzles have been popular among Africans for a long time. In the Gambia, for example, they like to solve the puzzle shown in fig. 10. A lace is tied to the bar at three points. A ring hangs on the cord, which must be moved along the entire rope without untiing it from the bar. The situation the "puppy" got into is similar to this one.

It is not difficult to make such toys. To make a toy with a "puppy", you need to take a strip of hard cardboard, a string about four times the length of the strip, and a ring or unnecessary button. The size of the toy can be any. Prerequisite: the ring must be larger than the center hole of the bar.

The more you look at the puppy puzzle, the more you become convinced that it is impossible to solve it. But there is a solution. After solving the puzzle for the first time, you will be left with a feeling of incomprehension: how does the ring jump over the hole? Yes, this is an amazing challenge! Its secret lies in the special properties of the knot with which the lace is tied behind the central hole of the strap. Slide the ring along the cord in the desired direction as far as possible. Then slide the knot from one side of the hole to the other and advance the ring again. And so on until you transfer the ring to the right loop of the lace. Having entered the central hole, the lace comes back, that is, a loop of the lace enters the hole. We take out the loop and move the ring along the elongated part, and then put the loop back in place.

You can try tying the lace to the bar in different ways. Having tested several nodes shown in fig. 11, you will see that the puzzle is not solved in all cases.

If there is a solution, the lace, coming out of the hole, makes a loop and returns to it from the same side. If the lace goes through the hole and returns to it from the other side, there is no solution. The situation in which only one end of the lace passes through the hole is also not solvable.

In fig. 12 shows two more puzzles. One of them, with balls, was invented by the Czech collector of puzzles Stanislav Tvrdik, the other, with rings, by engineer K. Lazarev from the Moscow region. At first glance, they are very difficult, but once you have mastered the puzzle with the "dog", you will be able to solve these puzzles as well.

Solution to the African puzzle [see p. rice. 10, 13 - web / ed]: move the ring to the right to the center hole; pull on the two laces coming out of the hole; pull out the knot in which the laces are intertwined; slide the ring along the lace on which it hangs through the entire knot; pull the knot back inside the hole; move the ring to the right to the end of the bar.

Page 5 of 8

FOCUS AND Jokes

PUZZLE SQUARE

T By striking with scissors, you can turn a paper square into an excellent puzzle. Connect with a straight line point E - the middle of straight AB and point H - the middle of BD, then draw straight lines CE and CH. Cut the sheet along these lines, mix the triangles and invite your friend to fold them so that you get a square.

He will have to work hard to solve this simple problem.

THREE PUZZLES

D For this venture, cut out two figures A and B from thick paper; also make a small paper cylinder by wrapping a 2 cm wide strip of paper around a round plain pencil.

When assembled, this puzzle looks like the picture. It is necessary to remove the cylinder, without bending, without trampling the "keys". Imagine that the keys are real, iron. You can't bend an iron key!

Removing these keys is not so difficult.

It is necessary to bend figure B across, - then it is not difficult to pull the keys out of the loop.

When you learn to remove the keys, then you can easily make another puzzle out of thick paper - "anchor" or "boots".

Take a closer look at the picture - you will immediately understand how to remove the "anchor" from a large ring or "boots" from the frame.

AMAZING TAPE

Z Paint with ink or red ink half of the paper tape - lengthwise, on both sides.

If you connect the ends of this tape and glue, you get the right ring.

And we glue our tape more cunning: before gluing, we turn one end of the tape once and again, then we get such a ring as in the picture on the right.

Now take the scissors and carefully cut the tape lengthwise in two to separate the white from the red. It looks like you should end up with two separate rings.

But no! The red ring and the white are connected like links in a chain!

HEAVY NEWSPAPER

P Place a plank 5-6 mm thick, about 20 cm wide and 60 cm long on the table. Balance it on the edge of the table so that with the slightest pressure it tilts or falls.

Now, on top of the board installed in this position, spread a large-format newspaper sheet. If you hit the protruding end of the plank with force with your fist, then to your great amazement you will see that the plank has held in place, as if nailed down! It was held back by the air pressure on the surface of the newspaper sheet.

CHERRY

E Save that venture for the summer when the cherries are ripe. In a strip of thick paper, cut the slits, as in the picture, bend the strip and pass the middle ribbon through two slits.

You will have a paper loop. In it, you skip the cherries and straighten the strip.

Even the most inveterate gourmand will not remove the cherries now without tearing their stalks or paper strips.

5 COINS

WITH lodge on a flat table with 5 coins, as shown here. That's not difficult.

Carefully remove the bottom middle coin. You will have such a figure on the table as in the picture. Now break your building and try to fold it again with only four coins. In this case, you can not use either a compass, or a ruler, any measures, except for these four coins. The figure should be folded so that the fifth coin, which you will take later, will lie on your own.
place and touch all four coins at once.

Most likely you will be wrong. How can you do this without error?

Answer. First, place four coins as shown in the picture below.

Then turn coin # 1 down. Finally, carefully slide down coin No. 4 and slide it from above to coins No. 3 and No. 2. If you did not move the coins during these movements, then you got the correct position of four coins. Now you can take the fifth coin. Attach it to the rest, it will lie exactly, touching each of the four adjacent coins.

MAGNETIC PENCIL

T You take a pencil and hold it in the fist of your left hand, turning your fist with the back towards the audience. With your right hand, you wrap your left hand under the wrist.

This is a magnetic pencil, - you say. - And the magnet is not simple: it will stick to the sinks in your hand.

You slowly, slowly unclench your fist, and the pencil remains in place, as if stuck to your palm.

How it's done. Unbeknownst to the audience, you hold the pencil with the index finger of your right hand. This trick can be made even trickier, so that the viewer can see all your fingers. To do this, together with your left hand, you need to hold the second pencil in the right.

DRESSED RUBBER

T you reach out your hand; You have a rubber ring on your index and middle fingers - the kind that pharmacies attach a prescription to a vial or box of medicine.

This is my trained elastic band, - you say. - I’ll tell her: “Jump,” she will jump to other fingers. There is no deception here - you see, the whole ring ... "Jump!"

And at the same instant, the elastic band jumps to the ring finger and little finger.

How it's done. First, you show your comrades your hand in such a position as in the picture on the left. When you say that the ring is a whole, you turn your hand and pull back the elastic. At this moment, you quickly bend all your fingers so that their ends enter under the elastic, and show your hand with the back side, with your fingers bent. It seems to comrades that nothing has changed. Then you say: "Jump!" - and sharply straighten all your fingers. The ring will slide off the index and middle fingers and jump so quickly to the ring finger and pinky that no one will notice your trick.

TWO OR ONE?

WITH cross the index finger with the middle one and now touch with two fingers immediately to the ball (you can take any ball - glass, wood, metal, plastic, only a small one). It will seem clear to you that you are touching not one ball, but two! This is an illusion of touch, which is explained precisely by the fact that our fingers are in an unusual position: in a normal position, the same ball can never touch two outer sides of two adjacent fingers at once.

PAPER DANCERS

WITH We are now building a theater where electrified paper dancers will dance.

Take a piece of plexiglass (plexiglass) 35-40 cm long and 25 cm wide. Dry the glass thoroughly - it should be completely dry. Place it between the pages of two thick books, as shown in our figure, so that the glass lies above the table at about 3 cm high.Cut out figures of the same size from thin tissue paper as shown in our upper part of the figure. Cut out anything: little men, dogs, frogs. They should be no more than 2 cm high. To make dancing even more fun, you can cut out figures from paper of different colors. Then put these figures on the table under the glass. If now you begin to rub the plexiglass with a lump of dry paper, your figures, attracted by electricity, will begin to stand up, jump up to the glass ceiling of the “dance hall”. They will dance all the time while you rub the plexiglass with paper.

OU-KA, SMOOK!

V Pull out your palm and place a coin on it, for example, one ruble.

Ask some of your friends to take a brush for clothes and brush a coin from your hand.

This is not a tricky business, your friend will say.

But he will work in vain: the coin will lie calmly as if glued.

Of course, you warn your friend that you cannot hit the hand with the brush and scratch the ruble with the end of the brush. Let him clean your hand the same way you clean a dress.

FAN AND BUTTERFLY

AND Make a fan from thick paper, and two butterflies from thin colored tissue paper. It's easy to make a butterfly - you just need to twist a strip of paper in the middle. Stick a long woman's hair with a lump of wax with one end to the fan, and the other end to the butterfly. Butterflies can be made even with spectators; hair should be prepared in advance on the table. And no one will notice that you have stuck butterflies to the fan (this trick is best performed in the evening, under electric lighting). Now, waving your fan, you will scare the butterflies off the table, make them flutter in the air, sit on a bouquet of flowers, take off and spin again. First, do this trick alone, without spectators, to learn how to control the flight of paper butterflies.

SUBSCRIBE SWINGER

V Take a stick, best of all oak, 25 cm long, 1 sq. cm. Make 4-5 notches along the edge to get a wavy surface, as in the picture. Round one end of the stick and stick a pin into it. Cut a jagged circle with a diameter of 5 cm from a postcard, in the center make a hole the size of a pinhead. Put the circle on a pin.

Hold the wand in your left hand by the lower end - with the notches towards you. Take a pencil in your right hand. As you drag your pencil up and down the indentations, the circle will start to spin quickly.

If you measure well the depth and length of the grooves, the spinner will be very obedient. At your request, it will rotate from left to right, then from right to left: it depends on which edge of the wavy surface you begin to guide the pencil! And you can learn how to do this trick without a pencil at all: you will drive along the grooves with your fingernail.

GIVE THE SCISSORS!

- D hey me scissors! Just don’t untie them from the chair, I didn’t tie them here for nothing.

I looked at my friend and just threw up my hands.

How can you take them off? After all, they are so tightly attached!

Oh you! Why, it’s not tricky at all.

Like this, and like this, and like this - and you're done!

LACE KEY

WITH knit a string into a ring, pass it through the head of the key and stretch it between two thumbs, as shown in the picture.

How can I release the key without removing the cord from my fingers?

Here's a simple secret: sliding the lace to the first (nail) joints of the fingers, grasp it with the thumb and forefinger of your right hand at point A (you need to take it by one lace, not two), put this part of the lace on the thumb of your right hand deeper: at the same time, release the first loop from this finger. As soon as you pull on the lace again, the key will fall.

THE RELEASED PRISONER

T Your hands are tightly tied with a handkerchief, then a rope is passed between your hands behind the handkerchief. The ends of the rope are holding tight - you are in captivity.

How can you free yourself?

You open your hands and rub one hand against the other until you manage to pull the rope through the ring of the handkerchief. Then you insert the fingers of one hand into the rope loop. Pull now and the rope will slip out from under the shawl.

You are free.

When doing this trick, take a rope no thinner than 5 mm, otherwise it will be difficult for you to free yourself.

FOLD!

N draw a chessboard on the plywood - try to do it carefully. The board can be small, as shown here.

They cut it into five or six parts, no matter what shape. This is a great puzzle game. Try folding the chessboard again!

You probably remember how to fold it, because you sawed the board into pieces yourself. But your comrades - they will tinker until they add it!

3 BALLS

T Three wooden bead balls and two pieces of cord are all you need for this trick. Balls can even be replaced with thread spools.

You show your comrades three balls strung on two laces.

You tie one lace in a knot on one side of the balls, then the second lace on the other side and give all four ends to your comrades.

Hold on tight! And I will take off the balls without cutting the laces, without undoing the knots.

And you will, really.

How it's done. The trick is how the laces are passed through the balls. You prepared everything in advance: you took two laces, stretched them side by side on the table and tied them together in the middle with a thin thread - the same color as the laces.

Before demonstrating the trick, you show the knitted laces from a distance to your comrades. The comrades cannot see that the laces are tied - you cover the knot with your fingers. And before you thread the laces into the balls, you discreetly connect the two ends of one lace. It turns out as in the picture. If we now tie one (single) knot on each side, then in reality the knot will not work. It is worth, holding the balls, to break the thread connecting the laces - the balls will be free, and your comrades will open their mouths in surprise: there will not be a single knot on the laces. Before showing this trick, do it a few times yourself to learn how to tie the knots correctly.

DO NOT OPEN BOTTLE!

P show your comrades an empty bottle sealed with a cork. A crocheted pin is stuck into this cork from the inside, and a button is dangling from the hook on a thread. "I undertake," you say, "to cut this thread without opening the bottles!"

Let the comrades fill the cork well with wax so that there is no deception. Then you take the bottle, go out into the next room, use a magnifying glass to direct the beam of sunlight onto the bottle so that the thread is in focus, and instantly burn it. Choose a black thread prudently, it absorbs rays better. Take the bottle from transparent "white" glass.

Comrades will long ponder how you managed to cut the thread without opening the bottle.

JAPANESE BALL

WITH It looks like a very simple ball, put on a string. He freely runs back and forth along the lace. But in the hands of a magician, he suddenly comes to life. The magician holds the string upright, the ball slides down along it.

Stop! - says the magician, and the ball stops instantly.
- Drive on! - says the magician, and the ball goes on.

The matter is very simple: the channel drilled in the ball is curved. To do this, you need to drill it from both sides to the middle at a large angle. It is clear that it is worth pulling on the string - and it will immediately slow down the fall of the ball. Loosen the tension - the "Japanese ball" will run down again.

If you fail to make such a ball out of wood, make it out of clay and dry it thoroughly before you start the trick. A channel in a clay ball is pierced with a nail, also on both sides.

MAGIC NODE

E Masha taught me that trick.

Look, ”she said,“ now I’ll tie a knot on a thread, and then I’ll sew, and the knot will slip through the fabric completely freely!

She showed me a thread with a needle, in front of my eyes she tied a double knot on the thread and began to sew. I couldn’t believe my eyes: a large knot instantly slipped through the matter! And the matter was dense. I tried it too - it didn't work.

You freak! - Masha laughed. - I have not a simple, but a magic bundle. Here's how it's done. I took two identical pieces of thread, twenty centimeters in each. When you didn’t see it, I wound one thread around my middle finger, and put a thimble on top so that the thread would hold. On this thread, I tied a knot. And she sewed with a different thread, without a knot. I passed it through the needle so that only the very tip went through the ear; this tip was hidden between my thumb and forefinger. I held the needle with my middle finger, on which is a thimble.

It seemed to you that two threads are two ends of one. And I pulled the needle out of the fabric so quickly that you could not notice the deception. No one has noticed yet. And here you don't need any special skill - it's very easy to learn.

THIS IS A CORK!

V Cut three holes in the cardboard: a circle, a square, and a triangle.

The height and base of the triangle, the sides of the square and the diameter of the circle must be equal to each other. The plug must be of the same diameter.

Give this cardboard with holes to a friend and ask him to plug all three holes one by one with the same plug.

It is not tricky to plug a round hole: after all, the cork is of the same diameter.

To plug a square hole, cut the plug parallel to its base so that its height is equal to its diameter.

Now, if you insert the plug sideways into a square hole, it will definitely plug it.

The triangle remains. Here you have to smash your head well.

To plug a triangular hole with this amazing plug, you need to cut it obliquely with a wedge, as shown in the figure. In this case, you will not change either its height or foundation.

The picture shows how tightly our cork plugged the triangle cut in the cardboard.

Your comrade will struggle for a long time over this venture. And he will cut the traffic jams a lot until you tell him how this puzzle is being solved.

"ROLLERCOASTER"

Have Drop a drop of water on the paper - this drop will spread out in a wide circle: the water will moisten the paper.

But if you oil the paper, the drop will roll on it in a flattened ball. We will use this property of liquid to make a fun game.

Take a long strip of thick paper (you can glue it from several pieces) and grease it thoroughly with any grease or lubricating oil. Place several stands of different heights on the table, small small less. Stick a paper strip to these coasters so that it bends in waves; the farther from the highest stand, the steeper the waves should bend. Place a plate under the bottom end of the paper tape. Drop a drop of water from the top end. It will roll on an inclined plane, with acceleration it will rise to the first mound, pass over it and run further. Drop will run after drop through all the "slides" right into the plate. It even seems that the drops are trying to overtake each other.

NEEDLES AND PINS ON WATER

P The surface of the water is a rather elastic film. If you put a needle or pin on the water so carefully that they do not get wet, this film will perfectly withstand their weight; the needle will float, or rather, lie on an elastic film, and even with the naked eye it will be possible to see how the water surface has been bent under the weight of the needle.

Here are some ways you can put a pin or pin in the water without breaking the surface film.

You can hang a pin on two threads, and then, when it lies on the water, remove these threads. The difficulty here is that, when removing the threads, do not touch the pin with them.

With a certain dexterity, you can, holding a pin by the point, put it on the water and release it at the moment when it coincides with your reflection. It takes a very confident hand.

It is much easier to place a pin on a fork, then submerge the fork in the water, turning it vertically a little.

Finally, the easiest way is to put a piece of tissue paper in the water with a pin on it. The paper will get wet in a minute or two and go to the bottom; the pin will remain on the surface of the water.

If you first magnetize the needle and then put it on the water, you will have an excellent compass: the magnetized end of the needle will point exactly to the north.

PAPER FISH

V Cut a fish out of paper - here is its life-size image. Cut a round hole in the center a connected with the tail by a narrow channel ab; Pour water into a basin and place the fish in the water so that the underside is completely moistened and the top completely dry. Gently put a large drop of oil into the hole. a; oil, strive to spread over the surface of the water, will flow through the channel ab, and as a result of the reaction, the fish will begin to move in the opposite direction, that is, forward.

MAGIC FIGURES

N Draw a geometric shape on a small square sheet of glossy writing paper: a square, a triangle, a rectangle, a polygon. But draw with a pencil dipped in water. Let the leaf float on the water with the pattern upside down and carefully fill the drawn figure with water. This will not be very difficult, as the wet lines drawn with a wet pencil will serve as the boundaries of the drawing and prevent the water from spreading beyond these edges.

Now take the pin and touch it with the point of the triangle anywhere in such a way that the pin plunges into the water, but does not touch the paper. Immediately, the leaf will begin to move and will move until the geometric center of the triangle is located exactly under the point of the pin! Here the sheet will stop by itself. Repeat this experiment with a square and a rectangle; when the leaf stops, the point of the pin will be above the intersection of the diagonals.

VORTEX IN CARAFE

V from in front of you is a decanter half-filled with water. It is plugged with a cork into which a knitting needle or just a piece of wire is inserted. The lower end of the spoke is submerged in water, about 5 cm, but does not reach the bottom. And on the water, worn on the same knitting needle, a cork ring floats.

You must, without opening the decanter, remove the cork ring from the spoke.

The answer to this problem is given on the left side of the figure. With a few strong jerks, you need to spin the water in the decanter, then put the decanter on the table. Under the action of centrifugal force, a deep funnel is formed in the water, the cork ring will go down with the water, slide off the spoke and float up.

ROTARY SPIRAL

WITH return a small spiral from a very thin wire, lightly grease it with oil so that it stays on the water.

Then put a few drops of soap solution into a straw (a straw will replace your dropper-dropper; as soon as you open the upper opening, a drop will flow out of the straw).

Drop a drop of solution into the center of the spiral, and the spiral will turn in the direction indicated by the arrow in the figure.

When the spiral stops, add another drop - the spiral will turn again.

10 Years of Puzzle Solving February 10th, 2017

One elderly Japanese man for ten years tried to solve a puzzle, the essence of which is that from one end of the rope, where the green ball is attached, hold the ring onto the red ball on the other side. A rope cleverly threaded through a wooden ring prevents this.

It's a pity, of course, that I can't give you a try to solve it. There would be some kind of virtual model of this puzzle would be cool.

To solve this puzzle, the pensioner turned to television on the Knight Scoop program. Local experts also could not cope with the problem, so they turned to other people, to the professor of mathematics, and even to the monkey! And the solution to the puzzle turned out to be very simple and elegant!

Here you can look at some options -