Lay out six matches in the way depicted in the illustration. The objective is to shift one match without displacing the others so that the resulting arrangement would represent an arithmetical fraction equal to 1. You are not allowed to move the match forming the horizontal fraction bar.
Solution
In the 1916 issue of Strand Magazine, Henry Ernest Dudeney wrote that a French correspondent sent him this matchstick puzzle but the solution was not given to him. Hence, he solved it himself.
Dudeney said that he’s certain that the solution to this puzzle was the same as his solution.
You can see that one of the I in VII is shifted to form a square root or radical sign. The square root of 1 is 1 and 1 divided 1 is equal to 1.
This is one of the best “easy” matchstick puzzles I have ever seen. I’m not sure if I would be able to figure this out if someone challenges me to solve it without prior knowledge of the solution.
The Roman Numerals threw me because i could not see how to make them into a fraction of 1 except something raised to the power of zero is always one. I did not think of square roots. have you any others?
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Wow. Tough puzzle.
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If we accept the match on the bottom left as leaning, but still “1,” and use the 2nd from the bottom left, to cross over the 3rd from the left, we have 1 X 1, which also works. But only in Pisa, Italy.
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That’s an interesting perspective :)
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Nice one!
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:)
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Love stuff like this …. I bought a book once for my children when they were smaller and it was full of seemingly straight forward similar puzzles, which always make us thing and draw for hours. Real brain-teaser stuff. The back-page answers usually revealed a more obvious, yet invisible at first glance, solution.
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Those types of puzzles are the best.
Thanks for reading.
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now I am prepared for another “genius” question
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Very neat. I would have never got iy.
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I also tried something related to maths. Hope you see that
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I think I have seen that. Was it about dreams?
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yeah that was it . thanks you went through it. Actually I’m new here .
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good job
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Thanks for reading.
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