Fun and games for Clan Douglas
A
logic puzzle is a puzzle deriving from the mathematical field of
deduction.
The logic puzzle was first produced by Charles
Lutwidge Dodgson, who is better known under his pen name Lewis Carroll,
the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. In his book The Game of
Logic he introduced a game to solve problems such as confirming the
conclusion "Some greyhounds are not fat" from the statements "No fat
creatures run well" and "Some greyhounds run well". Puzzles like this,
where we are given a list of premises and asked what can be deduced from
them, are known as syllogisms. Dodgson goes on to construct much more
complex puzzles consisting of up to 8 premises.
In the second
half of the 20th century mathematician Raymond M. Smullyan continued and
expanded the branch of logic puzzles with books such as The Lady or the
Tiger?, To Mock a Mockingbird and Alice in Puzzle-Land. He popularized
the "knights and knaves" puzzles, which involve knights, who always tell
the truth, and knaves, who always lie.
We hope that you enjoy our selection:
