the basement > Logic Puzzles

[SPOILER] The Pipe Cleaner Puzzle

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Yip:

--- Quote from: redyoshi49q on April 21, 2009, 02:43:24 am ---You're still off.  There's an even more efficient solution to part 3.

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Yes, and this is why puzzles such as this (the third part especially) are flawed; there is no way for someone to know the answer is correct. You admitted yourself that it's true of the third part.  The first part I would say is a good in that it is possible to know you have the solution without having to see the answer; this is the way all logic puzzles should be. It may be a bit on the easy side, but that's another issue.

redyoshi49q:

--- Quote from: Vararam on April 21, 2009, 05:51:11 pm ---Yes, and this is why puzzles such as this (the third part especially) are flawed; there is no way for someone to know the answer is correct.

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Yeah, considering that might have been a good idea.  In retrospect, I should have said "The maximums are x, y, and z; figure out how said maximums can be generated."  It would have created a little less confusion as to whether a given solution was correct.  At least I now know to not do that for next time (and considering that a puzzle that I was contemplating for May would have had this problem to a *much* greater extent, it's a good thing that you mentioned this).

Ironically, the proof and logic behind your proposed solution to part 3 fills in the hole that logically justified my solution.


--- Quote from: Vararam on April 21, 2009, 05:51:11 pm ---It (*part 1*) may be a bit on the easy side, but that's another issue.

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I had mistakenly considered the answer for part 2 as the solution to part 1 when I was first starting to make this puzzle, and when Hayaikawa tried the puzzle over IRC PM with me, he had generated the solution to part 2 in his endeavors of part 1.  Your systematic logical approach made part 1 easier for you, while somebody with good spatial orientation could get part 3 relatively easily through experimentation.  This is the reason why I put these three puzzles together.  Each is solved most optimally by a different way of thinking.

Finally, a hint for you, if you choose to accept it:


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You may or may not realize it, but you're operating under a heuristic.
You're assuming something that's not necessarily true, and that's
the reason why your solid (and otherwise correct) logical argument
for part 3 is not generating the maximized answer.  You may be able
to adapt your method to work with this problem once you realize
what heuristic you're working under, or you may just see the solution
through a different method or no method whatsoever.  Either way,
you need to find and consider through some means the possibilities
that you have been excluding up until now.

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