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#1: Joseph Jessen (gijoex2) on Mar 2, 2009

I found this one to be really easy, but still required some common-sense guessing. Good job, Matthew. (Where does, "Tom Brady," come from?

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Found to be logically solvable by jan.

I solved it exactly the same way Adam did.

Hmmmph...I still say "edge logic" smacks of "guess"...systematic guessing, but still guessing...mayhaps even educated guessing...

...but still ah say, ah say.....a guess.


lol (anybody remember Foghorn Leghorn the cartoon rooster who was always saying "ah say, ah say...")?

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Very easy, edge logic is logic.

Of course it involves a "guess". So does a lot of line solving. You think to yourself, "Suppose the three were here, then we'd only have the four left to do the rest of the line, but it couldn't cover these two blocks, so the thee can't be there." That's a little mental trial and error, a proof by contradiction. We make a guess, see that it leads to a contradiction, and learn something.

That's reasonable to do in a puzzle because it is a reasonable thing to expect someone to be able to do in their head. I don't see edge logic as any different to that. You look at most two steps ahead from your guess to find a contradiction. If someone looking over your shoulder asked you why you marked that cell white, you could probably explain it to them verbally without having to draw a diagram.

What we are trying to rule out is puzzles where you have to to say go five or six steps past your guess before you can see a contradiction. That's not a reasonable thing for a puzzle designer to expect a person to be able to do in their head (though probably some people (not me) can do it).

Of course some people guess all the time. They say "This looks like an airplane. If it's an airplane then this square is probably black." That's fine if that makes you happy. The need for guessing probably won't bother you at all and you can ignore the ratings and discussion about that.

But other people want to solve puzzles in a way where they never mark a cell black because it is "probably black". They only mark things that they are absolutely sure about. I think it's fair to call that "logical puzzle solving" and to call puzzles that can be solved that way "logically solvable." If some other terminology could be found that would avoid having to have this conversation over and over again, then I'd jump on it, but I haven't found it yet.

I think the distinction is an important one to make, even though it isn't a hard and fast distinction.

I too did edge logic. and agree that it's a form of logic. :)

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