Pondering Solutions to the King Snake Puzzle: An Adventure in Discrete Mathematics

Plan of Attack

For 10 steps in assembling the 27-cube snake puzzle, see Appendix 1. If the terms are puzzling, too, look them up in the Glossary, Appendix 7. For 26 steps in assembling the 64-cube King Snake Puzzle, see pages 7-8 in section 3.6 "The Puzzler with the Puzzle on His Hands", and see Appendix 3, pages 4-5 Computer Programmer? See "Harry", the Visual Basic macro that generates paths of solution to the King Snake Puzzle. Harry's logic is described, and his source code listing is presented in Appendix 6, "All About Harry". To indulge in the labyrinth of the whole of the titillating adventure, jump in at page 1, section 1.0 "The Challenge". See the development of discrete algorithms that (1) generate and examine Harry's 192 paths of solution, (2) identify similarities and differences among the 192 paths, and (3) group the paths into families of 24 siblings. For a succinct summary of the adventure see page 15, section 5.0 "Finale, Digital vs. Physical" where the mystery of the King Snake Puzzle is revealed.