The 14-15 Puzzle in Puzzleland by Sam Loyd
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The text and artwork come from “Sam Loyd’s
Cyclopedia of 5000 Puzzles Tricks and Conundrums with Answers” page 235 and 371. This book was published in 1914, after Sam
Loyd’s death in 1911, by Sam Loyd’s son.
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Figure 1:
The older inhabitants of Puzzleland will
remember how in the early seventies (the 1870’s) I drove the entire world crazy
over a little box with movable blocks which became known as the “14-15 Puzzle.” The fifteen blocks were arranged in the
square box in regular order, only with the 14 and 15 reversed, as show in the
above illustration. The puzzle consisted
in moving the blocks about, one at a time, so as to bring them back to the
present position in every respect except that the error in 14 and 15 must be
corrected.
A prize of $1,000, which was offered for
the first correct solution to the problem, has never been claimed, although
there are thousands of persons who say they performed the required feat.
People became infatuated with the puzzle and
ludicrous tales are told of shopkeepers who neglected to open their stores, of a
distinguished clergyman who stood under a street lamp all through a wintery
night trying to recall the way he had performed the feat. The mysterious feature of the puzzle is that
no one seems to be able to recall the sequence of moves whereby they feel sure
they succeeded in solving the puzzle.
Pilots are said to have wrecked their ships, engineers rush their trains
past stations and business generally became demoralized. A famous Baltimore editor tells how he went
for his noon lunch and was discovered by his frantic staff long past midnight
pushing little pieces of pie around on a plate!
Farmers are known to have deserted their plows and I have taken one of
such instances as an illustration for the sketch.
David
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