Bergsala

Great Minds: Archimedes' Wood Puzzle Bergsala

Remove the 14 wooden pieces from the frame. Can you fit them back into the frame again? Now open the booklet provided to find 12 further shape-building challenges.

Archimedes is regarded as one of the leading scientists of classical antiquity. He also designed and wrote about a tangram-type puzzle, which consists of pieces cut from a square that can be used to make other polygons. This style of tangram is called the Loculus of Archimedes. At over 2,000 years old, it is believed to be the world s oldest puzzle. What Archimedes didn t know was that without rotations or reflections, there are 536 different ways to place the 14 pieces back into the square frame!