Nine L-ements
Designed, made and presented
by Rick Eason
for
International Puzzle Party 23
Chicago,
Illinois, August 2003
Nine
L-shaped pieces, no two alike, form a solid cube
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|
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The pieces |
An assembled puzzle |
Objective: Make a solid cube out of the nine pieces. There are 169 solutions. Most solutions are closely related to other solutions. Only six solutions cannot produce another solution by rearranging two pieces. Of these, one solution requires rearranging at least four pieces to produce another solution. One might argue that there are really only 14 substantially different solutions. For those interested, here are a list of solutions and an analysis showing related solutions.
Click here for a discussion on variations of Nine L-ements.
Click here for the related Eight L-ements puzzle that has only one solution.
Other simpler problems are given by trying to create a solid cuboid (a.k.a. rectangular parallelpiped) out of subsets of the pieces. Six pairs of pieces can form simple cuboids. (Can you find them?) The following table gives all remaining sets making cuboids, the number of solutions and the cuboid dimensions.
Other Cuboids |
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Pieces |
Number of Solutions |
Dimensions |
---|---|---|
ABDH |
1 |
7x7x11 |
BDEG |
4 |
7x7x11 |
BEGH |
2 |
7x7x11 |
CEFG |
1 |
7x8x11 |
CFHI |
7 |
7x8x12 |
DEFI |
1 |
4x11x15 |
DEGI |
4 |
7x8x11 |
DEGI |
8 |
4x11x14 |
DEGI |
8 |
4x7x22 |
DFGH |
8 |
4x11x15 |
DGHI |
8 |
4x7x23 |
EFHI |
9 |
4x11x15 |
EGHI |
6 |
7x8x11 |
EGHI |
8 |
4x11x14 |
EGHI |
16 |
4x7x22 |
ABCDEF |
1 |
7x11x11 |
ABCDGI |
6 |
7x11x11 |
ABCGHI |
3 |
7x11x11 |
ABDEHI |
22 |
7x11x11 |
DEFGHI |
38 |
8x11x11 |
DEFGHI |
113 |
4x11x22 |
ABCDEFGH |
102 |
7x11x15 |
I really hate to give out solutions, but if you really, really must have my solution sheet, then click here.
© R. Eason, 2003