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Looking for a really hard puzzle (not the jigsaw variety)

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Arthrus

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This is a friend's humble request. I will call him Steve. He has no account of his own, and I am sad that I don't qualify as his best friend (as you will see in a moment), but maybe you could help me help him!

Steve tells me:
I need your help in finding the hardest motherf***ng puzzle ever. More specifically, the wire and metal puzzles you buy at local shops. Some examples include:

http://www.puzzlemaster.ca/browse/metal/311-cast-news

http://www.puzzlemaster.ca/browse/metal/1116-cast-quartet

http://www.puzzlemaster.ca/browse/wirepuzzlemaster/317-butterfly-s-revenge

Why, you may ask?
I have a tradition where every year I buy my best friend a puzzle like these for his birthday in hopes that i can stump him. But seriously, hes unstoppable. The longest he's been stumped was about 2 days. Last year i bought him "Cast News" and he beat it in 10 minutes. 10 F**KIN MINUTES!

Thus, I need to find a puzzle that will make his brain explode. If you happen to know of any such puzzle lemme know.
 
Isis Ball.
 
ThinkGeek has a ton of puzzles like this of varying difficulty. I think they're pretty cheap too, if I remember right.
 
Get him one of these.

0GTfH.jpg
 
I have a friend like that. It pissed me off. So I bought him a rubik's cube. If he can handle that, they have crazy hard versions of the cube.
 
Lost Fragment said:
Get him one of these.

0GTfH.jpg
Click to expand...
What's it called?


Hilbert said:
I have a friend like that. It pissed me off. So I bought him a rubik's cube. If he can handle that, they have crazy hard versions of the cube.
Click to expand...
Rubik's cubes are pretty easy for the guy. I think he's solved the standard 3x3, 4x4, and 5x5, but if there's some bizarre cubes that are made differently, then that might be good.
 
Arthrus said:
What's it called?



Rubik's cubes are pretty easy for the guy. I think he's solved the standard 3x3, 4x4, and 5x5, but if there's some bizarre cubes that are made differently, then that might be good.
Click to expand...
Does he get help or is it just off the top of his dome?
 
Chichikov said:
Lemarchand's box.
Click to expand...

How could I have forgotten :lol


EDIT: He doesn't get any help. One time he was given a broken bicycle lock (even the correct combination wouldn't work, and he wasn't told what the combination was supposed to be) and managed to get it open without using force in 45min. He's not looking up answers on the internet, which kind of scares me.
 
Arthrus said:
What's it called?



Rubik's cubes are pretty easy for the guy. I think he's solved the standard 3x3, 4x4, and 5x5, but if there's some bizarre cubes that are made differently, then that might be good.
Click to expand...
I wonder if he's solved a 2x2. They're a lot harder then you think because there's no central rotation point, but like all Rubik's Cubes there's an algorithm.
 
Arthrus said:
Rubik's cubes are pretty easy for the guy. I think he's solved the standard 3x3, 4x4, and 5x5, but if there's some bizarre cubes that are made differently, then that might be good.
Click to expand...
There are shitload of those.
Wikipedia seem to have a pretty good list (though I can't really comment on its extensiveness as it already contains many more variant than I knew of).

Also, this entry seem to be like a really good start.


p.s.
Damn, "disentanglement puzzle", used to have many of them as a kid, probably didn't think about them in over 20 years.
Didn't know they have a name either.
 
Arthrus said:
EDIT: He doesn't get any help. One time he was given a broken bicycle lock (even the correct combination wouldn't work, and he wasn't told what the combination was supposed to be) and managed to get it open without using force in 45min. He's not looking up answers on the internet, which kind of scares me.
Click to expand...
Does he have a background in math?

Listen, I understand most of a 3x3 Rubik's cube solution (didn't come up with it), and I will forever maintain that there is no way anyone figure it randomly by trying.
I could be wrong, and I most certainly don't know the particular of this story, but I cannot imagine a person that would be able to solve that without at least some sort of formalization.

And I can open a bike lock in 5 seconds ;p.
 
As a friend of a friend, I can't speak much for his education. He's clever for sure, but I don't know how he solved his first or successive cubes. He might have looked up some algorithms. Still, I've seen him do enough that I can safely say he's in a league beyond most people.

Looks like Steve is getting some friends together to chip in for the Isis
 
If he's seriously *that* good, you should try to figure out some other things he's good at. Maybe he's a savant. :lol



Get him a few Rorschach "puzzles;" that oughta stump him.
 
Joe Shlabotnik said:
If he is solving fucking five by five Rubik's cubes then you are never going to find something that stumps him.
Click to expand...

jpQpw.jpg
 
I was in a store once where they sold those metal pieces all twisted together puzzles, so I walked up to it, and I wanted to mess with it, but the second my finger touched it, all the pieces fell apart crashing to the floor.

I looked at the cash register and said "I am the chosen one." and left.

a - either someone had just finished taking it apart and didn't bother to put it back together / didn't want to pay for it, so they left it precarioulsy sitting there, looking like it was all together

or

b - I am the chosen one.
 
Here's one for your friend:

With one continuous line try to cross every line on the diagram without going through the same line twice, without backtracking, and without breaking the line.

ZF5jx.png


Feel free to give it a try, too, GAF
 
Get him a Revomaze:

83tHD.jpg

Site:
http://www.revomaze.co.uk/

Some Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdqQRTIn44o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjRJCP-mwXw

The blog mentioned above also has some fine recommendations, if you are looking for more traditional wire puzzles:
http://mechanical-puzzles.blogspot.com/2009/10/cast-ring.html
http://mechanical-puzzles.blogspot.com/2010/12/cast-ring-ii.html
http://mechanical-puzzles.blogspot.com/2009/10/cast-coaster.html
http://mechanical-puzzles.blogspot.com/2009/10/cast-loop-and-cast-amour.html
http://mechanical-puzzles.blogspot.com/2009/09/my-puzzle-nemisis-and-puzzle-cornucopia.html
http://mechanical-puzzles.blogspot.com/2010/01/my-puzzle-nemesis-vanquished.html
http://puzzlemaster.ca/browse/metal/304-cast-chain
http://puzzlemaster.ca/browse/metal/308-cast-enigma-metal
 
dudeworld said:
Here's one for your friend:

With one continuous line try to cross every line on the diagram without going through the same line twice, without backtracking, and without breaking the line.

ZF5jx.png


Feel free to give it a try, too, GAF
Click to expand...
Is this your way of exacting revenge on those that who didn't take topology in college?

Edit: oh, and just so no one gets an aneurysm banging their head on it, it's not solvable.
 
Chichikov said:
Is this your way of exacting revenge on those that who didn't take topology in college?

Edit: oh, and just so no one gets an aneurysm banging their head on it, it's not solvable.
Click to expand...

It is solvable but there's a trick to it. My grade 7 math teacher gave us this problem.
 
dudeworld said:
It is solvable but there's a trick to it. My grade 7 math teacher gave us this problem.
Click to expand...
Well, without messing around ("kissing" a line, folding the "paper", going "through" a line etc.) this is not solvable.

And your grade 7 math teacher was a dick.
 
Chichikov said:
Well, without messing around ("kissing" a line, folding the "paper", going "through" a line etc.) this is not solvable.

And your grade 7 math teacher was a dick.
Click to expand...

All you need to do is think in a clever way and realise things that were left out of the rules. None of those you listed are it, but one of them is close.
 
Love those hanayama puzzles! NEWS was kinda easy though. This one I never figured out and still don't understand even after I looked up the answer. Super Tough
000304.jpg
 
Lafazar said:
Get him a Revomaze:

83tHD.jpg

Site:
http://www.revomaze.co.uk/

Some Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdqQRTIn44o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjRJCP-mwXw

The blog mentioned above also has some fine recommendations, if you are looking for more traditional wire puzzles:
http://mechanical-puzzles.blogspot.com/2009/10/cast-ring.html
http://mechanical-puzzles.blogspot.com/2010/12/cast-ring-ii.html
http://mechanical-puzzles.blogspot.com/2009/10/cast-coaster.html
http://mechanical-puzzles.blogspot.com/2009/10/cast-loop-and-cast-amour.html
http://mechanical-puzzles.blogspot.com/2009/09/my-puzzle-nemisis-and-puzzle-cornucopia.html
http://mechanical-puzzles.blogspot.com/2010/01/my-puzzle-nemesis-vanquished.html
http://puzzlemaster.ca/browse/metal/304-cast-chain
http://puzzlemaster.ca/browse/metal/308-cast-enigma-metal
Click to expand...


WOW! That's cool. I want one now!
 
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