ThinkGeek’s Preposterous Puzzle Solved?

I have been getting a lot of traffic from people searching for the solution to ThinkGeek’s missing square puzzle so I have decided to interact a little bit with the searchers. I haven’t received my Preposterous Puzzle yet so I cannot give you exactly what you are looking for, but at least I can give you a basic idea. For most people this post will be completely useless but I might be able to provide a little help to some of you who have no idea how to start. As I said in a previous post, this puzzle is remarkably similar to the classic missing square puzzle (click here for the statement and solution of this classic puzzle), and its solution should be pretty much the same.

Once you have figured out (or read) the solution to the classic missing square puzzle, you are now open to the possibility of imperfections in the original arrangement of the Preposterous Puzzle. At first sight the pieces seem to fit perfectly without the square, but do they? If you look carefully there is at least one big hole between the largest piece and one of the triangles. This big hole is a rectangle whose width is about three times the side of the little square, and whose height is about one third the side of the little square. Basic math tells us that the surface of this hole is about the same as the surface of the little square, and that gives us hope that the puzzle can be solved.

My suggestion is to open your mind to the following facts:

• The largest piece may not be symmetric.
• You may be able to turn the pieces upside down (which is not necessary in the classic missing square puzzle).
• The original arrangement is not perfect.
• One of the obtuse corners of the large piece seems to be chopped off (I don’t know if this is useful).
• The pieces should fit perfectly with the little square, so if you are trying an arrangement and you are leaving holes, you might want to start again and try another approach.

Ok so it turns out I was wrong about some of the points above being useful for the solution to the puzzle. Read my most recent post about this puzzle for the actual solution! :)

The Preposterous Puzzle

Read also the newer post: ThinkGeek’s Preposterous Puzzle Solved?

Many of you have already seen the lateral thinking puzzle commonly known as the missing square puzzle. It seems at first to be a paradox but it has a simple (yet far from obvious) solution. The first figure below seems to have a larger surface than the second since the second one is missing a square. However they are both formed by the same set of pieces. Can you explain what’s going on?

The Missing Square Puzzle

Once you have solved (or seen the solution to) this puzzle, you may wish to check out ThinkGeek’s real life variation of the missing square puzzle, the Prepousterous Puzzle.