A game, problem, or toy that challenges one's ingenuity or understanding is called a puzzle. The goal of solving a puzzle is to logically connect all of the pieces in order to arrive at the best or most pleasurable answer (or take them apart). Only a handful of the many puzzle subgenres include crossword puzzles, word searches, number puzzles, relational puzzles, and logic puzzles. In academia, the study of puzzles is known as enigmatology.
Despite the fact that puzzles are sometimes created for amusement, they can also be the result of serious logical or mathematical errors.. Their solution might make a substantial contribution to mathematical research in such circumstances.
Etymology
The verb puzzle was first recorded around the end of the 16th century, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The Voyage of Robert Dudley...to the West Indies, 1594–1595, a book told by Capt. Wyatt, by himself, and by Abram Kendall, master, contains its oldest usage recorded in the OED (published circa 1595). Later, the term started to be used as a noun, first as an abstract noun that meant "the state or condition of being confused," and then it came to denote "a perplexing difficulty." Sir Walter Scott's novel Waverley, published in 1814, contains the first unambiguous citation in the OED for the phrase "a toy that tries the player's inventiveness," referring to a "reel in a bottle" toy.
The OED lists "unknown" as the etymology of the word puzzle; unconfirmed theories regarding its etymology include an Old English verb puslian meaning "pick out" and a derivative of the verb pose.
Puzzles can be categorized as:
Situation puzzles, sometimes known as "lateral thinking puzzles,"
The Three Cups Problem, the Seven Bridges of Königsberg, and the Three Utility Problem are only a few of the numerous difficult puzzles in mathematics, along with the Missing Square Puzzle.
Sangaku (Japanese temple tablets with geometry puzzles) (Japanese temple tablets with geometry puzzles)
Using chess pieces on a chess board, a chess problem is a puzzle. The eight queens puzzle and the knight's trip are two examples.
Mechanical and dexterity puzzles, like the Rubik's Cube and the Soma Cube, can be fun pastimes for adults or educational gifts for kids.
construction puzzles such stick puzzles, disentanglement puzzles, folding puzzles, and jigsaw puzzles, as well as combination puzzles like Peg solitaire. A three-dimensional version of this kind is called Puzz 3D.
lock jigsaws
You can conceal things, like jewels, using a puzzle box.
Sokoban tiling puzzles like Tangram Tower of Hanoi and the 15 Puzzle are examples of sliding puzzles (also known
as sliding tile puzzles).
puzzle solving :
Finding answers to puzzles frequently involves identifying patterns and following a specific form of ordering. Such riddles may be easier for those with a high ability for inductive reasoning to solve than for others. However, those who are skilled at deduction may be able to solve puzzles based on research and discovery more quickly. With practise, deductive reasoning gets better. BODMAS is a popular element in mathematical problems. Bracket, Of, Division, Multiplication, Addition, and Subtraction are all abbreviated as BODMAS. In some places, BODMAS is known as PEMDAS (Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, and Subtraction). It explains the steps to solve an equation in order. To avoid confusion over the order of operations, several mathematical puzzles call for the Top to Bottom convention.It is an elegantly straightforward concept that, like sudoku, depends on the restriction that numbers only occur once, going from top to bottom.