Problem: Nine Jolly Gaol Birds

q401

Shortly after the episode recorded in the last puzzle occurred, a ninth prisoner was placed in the vacant cell, and the merry monarch then offered them all complete liberty on the following strange conditions. They were required so to rearrange themselves in the cells that their numbers formed a magic square without their movements causing any two of them ever to be in the same cell together, except that at the start one man was allowed to be placed on the shoulders of another man, and thus add their numbers together, and move as one man. For example, No. $8$ might be placed on the shoulders of No. $2,$ and then they would move about together as $10.$ The reader should seek first to solve the puzzle in the fewest possible moves, and then see that the man who is burdened has the least possible amount of work to do.

Solutions: 1


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References

Project Gutenberg

  1. Dudeney, H. E.: "Amusements in Mathematics", The Authors' Club, 1917

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