Vol. 5, No. 3, 2012

Download this article
Download this article For screen
For printing
Recent Issues

Volume 18
Issue 2, 181–385
Issue 1, 1–180

Volume 17, 5 issues

Volume 16, 5 issues

Volume 15, 5 issues

Volume 14, 5 issues

Volume 13, 5 issues

Volume 12, 8 issues

Volume 11, 5 issues

Volume 10, 5 issues

Volume 9, 5 issues

Volume 8, 5 issues

Volume 7, 6 issues

Volume 6, 4 issues

Volume 5, 4 issues

Volume 4, 4 issues

Volume 3, 4 issues

Volume 2, 5 issues

Volume 1, 2 issues

The Journal
About the journal
Ethics and policies
Peer-review process
 
Submission guidelines
Submission form
Editorial board
Editors' interests
 
Subscriptions
 
ISSN 1944-4184 (online)
ISSN 1944-4176 (print)
 
Author index
To appear
 
Other MSP journals
A graph-theoretical approach to solving Scramble Squares puzzles

Sarah Mason and Mali Zhang

Vol. 5 (2012), No. 3, 313–325
Abstract

A Scramble Squares puzzle is made up of nine square pieces such that each edge of each piece contains half of an image. A solution to the puzzle is obtained when the pieces are arranged in a 3 × 3 grid so that the adjacent edges of different pieces together make up a complete image. We describe a graph-theoretical approach to solving Scramble Squares puzzles and a method for decreasing randomness in the backtracking solution algorithm.

Keywords
graph theory, algorithms
Mathematical Subject Classification 2010
Primary: 05C75, 94C15
Milestones
Received: 23 August 2011
Revised: 15 December 2011
Accepted: 15 December 2011
Published: 14 April 2013

Communicated by Arthur T. Benjamin
Authors
Sarah Mason
Department of Mathematics
Wake Forest University
127 Manchester Hall
Winston-Salem, NC 27109
United States
Mali Zhang
Davidson College
Davidson, NC 28035
United States