Hello guzzlers,
The sliding block puzzle was one of the earliest puzzle crazes. It is still popular as a toy for kids and as a cheesy branded giveaway.
So, I’m assuming you know what to do. Pieces are in a grid and you must slide them between each other without picking them up.
The sliding block puzzle below contains four pieces: 1, 2, 3 and T. Your challenge is to move the piece marked T to the bottom right corner in five moves.
A move consists of taking a piece and sliding it to a new position. For example, if you wanted to move the 1 piece, you could slide it down one square, as illustrated below left, or you could move it as far as it could go, below right. Or you could move it to any of the other five available positions in between.
Go on. Five moves to put T in the corner. I’ll be back at 5pm BST with the solution.
Thanks to Dick Hess for today’s puzzle, which comes from his latest book The Population Explosion and other Mathematical Puzzles. Dick is a legend in puzzle circles and the author of lots of brilliant puzzle books.
I post a puzzle here on a Monday every two weeks. If you are reading this on the Guardian app, click where it says ‘Follow Alex Bellos’ and you’ll get an alert when the next puzzle appears.
I’m the author of three popular maths books including Alex’s Adventures in Numberland and the maths colouring book Snowflake Seashell Star.
You can check me out on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, my personal website or my Guardian maths blog.
