Programming Enigma Puzzles
From New Scientist #3608, 15th August 2026 [link] Circle numbers in the grid below to use them, or cross them out to get rid of them. Circled numbers must add up to both the target at the end of each row and the target below each column. [puzzlr7]
From New Scientist #672, 23rd October 1969 [link] For readers who like to see what they are doing, here for a change is a Tantalizer in undress. Suppose there are five men, A, B, C, D, E, each with a different alias, P, Q, R, S, T. 1. If C is not S, then B [ ]
From New Scientist #3607, 8th August 2026 [link] The goal is to divide the grid into non-overlapping rectangles. Each rectangle must contain exactly one number, and have an area equal to that number. (For example, a 6 should have a rectangle covering 6 squares). [puzzlr6]
From New Scientist #671, 16th October 1969 [link] George, Harris and I spent our holiday in sunny Sindonia this year. While there, we took a triangular tour from Linoleum to Margarine to Neutrino and back to Linoleum. Such jolly little places! Each leg of the trip could be made by coach, boat or train. Of [ ]
From Sphinx Magazine, December 1933 ABACDEBDECA is a cube. AB, ACD and ECA are cubes. EBD is a square. The source I used had and ECD are cubes , but I changed this to ECA (as these are the component parts of the long alphametic word, so it seems likely it is what the setter intended). The [ ]
From New Scientist #3606, 1st August 2026 [link] Circle numbers in the grid below to use them, or cross them out to get rid of them. Circled numbers must add up to both the target at the end of each row and the target below each column. [puzzlr5]
From New Scientist #670, 9th October 1969 [link] The rector of Bogside will preach on Brotherly Love at Matins this Sunday in the village of Egdon. It is part of a general exchange of pulpits among the rectors of Ayfield, Bogside, Cornstalk, Ditch and Egdon. Each will take Matins in another village and Evensong in [ ]
From Sphinx Magazine, November 1933 Reconstruct the multiplication: The puzzle is credited to: M. Pigeolet (Anvers) . [sphinx42]
From New Scientist #3605, 25th July 2026 [link] The goal is to divide the grid into non-overlapping rectangles. Each rectangle must contain exactly one number, and have an area equal to that number. (For example, a 6 should have a rectangle covering 6 squares). [puzzlr4]
From New Scientist #669, 2nd October 1969 [link] My wife s family want him called Adolphus, Bertrand, Clayforth, Deuteronomy, Engels. My side fancy Petronius, Quentin, Randolph, Sigismund, Templeton. But my wife says he cannot have 10 names, poor wee mite. So I have put my foot down. I have decided , I said, that he is to [ ]
From Sphinx Magazine, November 1933 Reconstruct the extraction of square root: The puzzle is credited to: M. Pigeolet (Anvers) . [sphinx41]
From New Scientist #3604, 18th July 2026 [link] Circle numbers in the grid below to use them, or cross them out to get rid of them. Circled numbers must add up to both the target at the end of each row and the target below each column. Note: In the version published in New Scientist [ ]
From New Scientist #668, 25th September 1969 [link] Here is a position which I reached last week in a postal game against Professor Ulan Bator of Outer Mongolia. It is all perfectly normal and legal but, to show international goodwill, I have recorded it in his gruff Mongolian dialect. To help those whose Mongolian is [ ]
From Sphinx Magazine, November 1933 Reconstruct the extraction of square root: The puzzle is credited to: M. Pigeolet (Anvers) . [sphinx40]
From New Scientist #3603, 11th July 2026 [link] The goal is to divide the grid into non-overlapping rectangles. Each rectangle must contain exactly one number, and have an area equal to that number. (For example, a 6 should have a rectangle covering 6 squares). This is a Shikaku type puzzle [@wikipedia]. This kind of puzzle [ ]
From New Scientist #667, 18th September 1969 [link] For her birthday the dwarves made Snow White an umbrella with seven panels. Each took a pot his favourite colour and painted a panel. When the paint was dry, each then painted a picture of himself on another panel. The panels formed a rainbow running clockwise. The [ ]
From Sphinx Magazine, November 1933 Reconstruct the multiplication: The puzzle is credited to: M. Pigeolet (Anvers) . [sphinx39]
From New Scientist #3602, 4th July 2026 [link] Circle numbers in the grid below to use them, or cross them out to get rid of them. Circled numbers must add up to both the target at the end of each row and the target below each column. This type of puzzle is also known as [ ]
From New Scientist #666, 11th September 1969 [link] Perhaps the most improbable chess tournament of all time was played at Munchausen in 1876. There were 26 entrants, and the name of each began with a different letter of the alphabet. All played all, scoring 2 for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 for [ ]
From Sphinx Magazine, October 1933 GALLUS and AMICUS are squares, MAN and LANGE are primes, UME and GEMIS each of them equals three times a prime number. The puzzle is credited to: M. Pigeolet (Anvers) . [sphinx38]
I found an article on the history of cryptarithms [link] that gives an example that is possibly the earliest published example of the genre (although the term cryptarithm had yet to be coined). In American Agriculturalist, December 1864, the following puzzle was posed in the Boys Girl s Column : From American Agriculturalist, December 1864 [link] [ ]
From New Scientist #664, 4th September 1969 [link] Pallas University has no less than five chairs in philosophy. They are held by Professors Aristotle, Bacon, Carneades, Descartes and Erasmus and are chairs of logic, metaphysics, noumenology, ontology and political theory. Each professor professes a different one of those subjects. The chairs are allocated on the [ ]
From Sphinx Magazine, October 1933 Reconstruct the multiplication: The puzzle is credited to: M. Pigeolet (Anvers) . Maurice Kraitchik was a Belgian mathematician, and editor of Sphinx. [sphinx37]
From Tantalizers: A Book of Original Logical Puzzles (1970) The three suspects, quailing before Holmes stern gaze, deposed as follows: Tom: Dick did it. Dick: That s not true. Harry: Tom did it. Tom: Harry s next statement will be true. Dick: Tom s last statement was false. Harry: Tom has made two false statements. Capital, Holmes , I [ ]
From New Scientist #663, 28th August 1969 [link] You may have seen those neat calendars where the date is given by two cubes laid side by side in a box, so that only the top face of each is visible. Each face of each cube bears a number and by suitable numbering and the necessary [ ]
From Sphinx Magazine, October 1933 Reconstruct the multiplication: where: OCTO, CTO, CTOB, TO, TOBR, TOBRE, OBRE, BRE, BR, RE, E are 11 prime numbers. The puzzle is credited to: M. Pigeolet (Anvers) . [sphinx36]
From Tantalizers: A Book of Original Logical Puzzles (1970) The Chippings Post is published at an entirely random time each afternoon, but George Handcuff, the local tycoon, must have his copy within the hour. Being a capitalist, he is willing to pay an urchin a penny for fetching it; and, being against monopolies, has divided the [ ]
From New Scientist #662, 21st August 1969 [link] The vicar of Much Snoring has been trying to recall the epic horseshoe-knotting contest of 1921. He remembers that there were five entrants, who rejoiced in the names of Acorn, Barley, Corncob, Duckweed and Elderberry. The contest took the form of a series of singles, until each [ ]
From Sphinx Magazine, October 1933 OCTOBRE is divisible by 3 and by 7. And: O + CTO = BRE. [sphinx35]
From Tantalizers: A Book of Original Logical Puzzles (1970) Montmorency left as one morning at Iffley Lock and returned three hours later, chased by men waving sticks and frying pans. He leapt into George s arms with a look which meant: Save me from this unjust world ; but we are used to that by now. We [ ]
From New Scientist #662, 14th August 1969 [link] I take my holidays seriously. This year I drew up a list of sixteen towns in the north of England, which I have been meaning to visit and asked friends to tell me of any truly scenic routes they knew between them. Putting it all together, I [ ]
From Sphinx Magazine #166, October 1933 Find the key of this multiplication. The setter is given as: M. Pigeolet (Anvers) . [sphinx34]
From Tantalizers: A Book of Original Logical Puzzles (1970) Envy, Hatred and Malice are the Fellows of St Jude s who teach Astronomy, Biology and Chemistry. Each has written a perfectly scurrilous novel, the titles being Xanadu , Youth and Zip . The biologist s novel is outselling Envy s. Zip is outselling the astronomer s. Xanadu is outselling Hatred s. And [ ]
From New Scientist #661, 7th August 1969 [link] My friend MacAristotle has been studying the community of crofters who inhabit the awful Isle of Oomph. Here is what he has found out so far: 1. All who speak Gaelic wear false teeth. 2. No one-legged numismatist has any grandchildren. 3. All church-goers are left-handed. 4. [ ]
From Sphinx Magazine #164, October 1933 The prime number AAAB, multiplied by 7, gives the product BEEDC. The same number AAAB, multiplied by 11, gives the product ADDFB. What is this number? [sphinx33]
From New Scientist #660, 31st July 1969 [link] Barbara Bocardo, the well-known lady logician, has developed a weakness for the occult. The other day she dropped in on a clairvoyance experiment run by Dr Divine at the Parapsychology Lab. He had a table on which five cards, numbered one to five, were lying face down. [ ]
From Sphinx Magazine #163, October 1933 ABCD is divisible by 17. CADB is divisible by 11. CDBA is divisible by 7. And all these three numbers are divisible by 3. What are they? [sphinx32]
From New Scientist #659, 24th July 1969 [link] Lateral thinking, which, being interpreted, means thinking about the sides of things, is all the rage at present. So here is a small problem which involves thinking about the sides of squares. Take 12 matchsticks and arrange them to form three squares. (Throughout this problem each side [ ]
From Sphinx Magazine #162, October 1933 ABCABD = DEB² There is no BrainTwister puzzle published in this week s issue of New Scientist. So here is another Sphinx puzzle instead. [sphinx31]
From New Scientist #658, 17th July 1969 [link] Twiddles is a frustrating patience played with coloured cubes. (Imagine that these cut-outs are folded along the dotted lines and the faces painted with the colours shown). When the three cubes are placed side by side, they form a rectangular solid with four sides each composed of [ ]
From Sphinx Magazine, September 1933 [sphinx30]
From New Scientist #3593, 2nd May 2026 [link] [link] There are five ways to write the number 5 as the sum of odd numbers: 1+1+1+1+1 3+1+1 1+3+1 1+1+3 5 (a) How many ways can the number 6 be written as the sum of odd numbers? (b) How many ways can the number 7 be written as [ ]
From New Scientist #657, 10th July 1969 [link] Hengist left Upper Bumpleigh on foot one morning along the level winding road to Lower Bumpleigh. At the same moment Horsa left Lower Bumpleigh by bicycle bound for Upper Bumpleigh. They met four miles from the latter and conversed for 23 minutes. Then Hengist mounted Horsa s bicycle [ ]
From Sphinx Magazine #158, September 1933 ABCDE and BACED are squares. C + D and B + E are consecutive primes. What are these numbers? The puzzle is credited to C. A. Rupp (from American Mathematical Monthly) . [sphinx29]
From New Scientist #3592, 25th April 2026 [link] [link] There are many positive whole numbers whose digits are all non-zero and different: for example 1289, 93 and 876. (a) What is the smallest three-digit number whose digits are all non-zero and different? (b) How many three-digit numbers are there whose digits are all non-zero and different? [ ]
From New Scientist #656, 3rd July 1969 [link] What better to catch the public s eye than a blend of personalities and babies. Or so it seemed to the makers of Snap, the well known dragon food. They printed a leaflet showing seven personalities — an actress, bishop, Cabinet Minister, disc jockey, entertainer, financier and guitarist [ ]
From Sphinx Magazine #157, September 1933 ABCD, BCAD and CBAD are squares. The puzzle is credited to C. A. Rupp (from American Mathematical Monthly) . [sphinx28]
From New Scientist #3591, 18th April 2026 [link] [link] 16² (= 256) and 16³ (= 4096) both have the same final digit. (a) How many numbers between 0 and 9 (inclusive) are there whose square and cube have the same final digit? (b) What is the smallest three-digit number whose square and cube have the same [ ]
From New Scientist #655, 26th June 1969 [link] Professor Plato assembled the six entrants for the prize in Applied Logic and remarked: Gentlemen, I have now marked your papers and produced a final order, in which there are no ties. Arthur is two places higher than Bertie; and Clarence three places higher than Desmond. I [ ]
From Sphinx Magazine, September 1933 Reconstruct the multiplication: The puzzle is credited to M. Rose-Innes (Yokohama) . [sphinx27]