Atilius

8 Queens problems

atilioch — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 14:40:33 +0000

The eight queens puzzle is the problem of putting eight chess queens on an 8×8 chessboard such that none of them is able to capture any other using the standard chess queen’s moves. The eight queens puzzle has 92 distinct solutions. If solutions that differ only by symmetry operations (rotations and reflections) of the board are counted as one, the puzzle has 12 unique solutions

Xiang Qi

atilioch — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 04:08:50 +0000

Xiangqi, or Chinese Chess, is an extremely popular game in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is currently played by millions (or tens of millions) in China, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, Hong Kong and other Asian countries. Xiangqi has remained in its present form for centuries. (xiáng) (qí ) translates to Elephant Game. In Mandarin it is written as either Xiangqi, Xiang Qi or Hsiang-Ch`i and pronounced “Shiang-Chi”.

Magic Cube 4D

atilioch — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 01:45:10 +0000

Magic Cube 4D is a fully functional four-dimensional analog of Rubik’s cube. The image below shows the puzzle in its solved state. For comparison, the normal 3D Rubik’s Cube has only 432 520 032 274 489 856 000 unique positions which is still huge. On the other hand, the 4D cube has more potential positions than the total number of atoms in the universe!