An Old time problem solved
Submitted by
cldng on Wed, 01/30/2008 at 4:17pm.
There was a chess problem that I always have my students try and solve. The problem is take one set of chess pieces and cover every square on the board. It must be done with only the pieces and no Pawns.
I thought that this problem was of the same ilk as the Kobeashi Marou scenario in Star Trek. The unwinable sequence, Captain Kirk was the only student to every solve the problem, he did it by reprogramming the scenario in the computer and got commended for original thinking.
I gave this problem to my student, William Evangelakos, thinking he would go crazy trying to find a solution. A little background, I once showed William the eight Queen problem (which has 12 solutions that I knew of at the time) and William found a 13th solution.
Like Captain Kirk William came up with a unique solution. See if you can figure it out. Well did ya try? Well William got as far as the diagrammed position and then he had a brilliant idea. It reminds me of the time when a Roman general went in and had to figure out how to undo Gordian's Knot, he cut it with his sword!
| | 
What was William's Solution? | Opps! the Bishop should be on c6 |
The first one to solve it gets the Colding no-prize and mention in the next article.
Where we will give the solution.
2543 reads | 42 comments |
1 vote: