LAP 02290100052
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LAP 02290100052 - 9/22/2008 5:21:51 PM
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goozak
Posts: 4
Joined: 9/11/2008
From: Canada
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First off, thanks for a great site ! Just discovered it and now I can't get any work done ! ;-)
I'm a bit baffled by the dificulty rating of the Color LAP puzzle # 02290100052. It's rated as Very Easy, but the lower left corner is killing me... It's a big area covered by big-numbered links. I did several others LAPs in the last couple of weeks and it's the first time I'm having such a hard time... I guess the rating is just off.
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RE: LAP 02290100052 - 9/22/2008 7:15:51 PM
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sharonella
Posts: 900
Joined: 7/15/2002
From: United States
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Hi Goozak - Welcome!
I just popped into that LAP & tried just the lower left corner. While I agree it probably shouldn't be marked "very easy", I didn't find it very hard to do the blue section in the lower left corner.
If you are solving online, have you clicked the "check" button to see if you have any errors anywhere? Sometimes a silly little error an inch over can cause a big problem where you wouldn't expect.
Good luck!
Sha
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RE: LAP 02290100052 - 9/22/2008 8:14:04 PM
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sharonella
Posts: 900
Joined: 7/15/2002
From: United States
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That's sometimes the best thing to do to "move on" with a puzzle you are stuck on - taking a break, then "attacking" the problem again a little later, then sometimes you see a solution you couldn't see before.
And I still do agree with you - even with just that small section I worked on, I would not call that LAP "very easy".
Sha
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RE: LAP 02290100052 - 9/22/2008 10:41:12 PM
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shiron
Posts: 423
Joined: 12/5/2005
From: Israel
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quote:
if a link has 2 possible paths and that one of these leaves the other one still possible, then the valid path must be the other one.
Hi! I understand what you mean. You are using the fact that there must be only one solution to solve the puzzle. In the past I asked if this should be used as a clue itself (the knowledge that there is only one solution to each puzzle)- In LAPS, whenever I see that more than one path "look possible" I know that it is not the real path and look for something that must "make me" go through one path only. I also use this when solving FAPs: sometimes you see a "dead end" where there are no clue-numbers that can influence the choice of some squares to be filled or empty-then I know they must be all filled or all empty and that itself is another clue to solving the puzzle... (I hope this is understandable :) )
Shiron
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RE: LAP 02290100052 - 9/23/2008 12:04:11 AM
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TygerStripe
Posts: 48
Joined: 3/25/2008
From: United States
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That is absolutely a valid strategy. The uniqueness of the solution is part of the definition of the puzzle, so it can be used as a clue. In the case of FAP it isn't always useful. For example, you can use it on a 1 or 8 often but it will never produce a clue that will help futher the solution. But there are cases it is useful. The easy way to illustrate it is to draw a 3x3 box around all the numbers in a 5x5 area around the clue you're analyzing. The resulting lines mark what I call the smallest possible divisions of the grid. Meaning, each area from those lines has to be either all full or all empty.
In this contrived illustration, the 4 in the middle can be solved with no other clues than what's present. Once you draw a box around everything, you find 2 groups of 1, 1 of 2 and 1 of 5 in the center box. Since the 5 is a larger group than the box, it must be empty, leaving just 4 left to fill (The 2 and 2 1s). It doesn't always present a whole clue of course. For example, if you had a 6 that was split into 5+2+1+1, you'd know it has to be a 2+1, so you'd know the 5 was involved with one of the 1s. But you wouldn't know which one. So you'd be able to fill in the 5 and empty the 2.
It isn't an easy strategy to recognize when it's useful though, and it is not often it gives any meaningful information. The interesting part about the solution is that aside from the clue being analyzed, what the numbers around it are is irrelevent. The below illustration works just as well if the outer numbers were all 3, for example.
 Attachment (1)
< Message edited by TygerStripe -- 9/23/2008 1:03:32 AM >
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RE: LAP 02290100052 - 9/23/2008 8:12:41 PM
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shiron
Posts: 423
Joined: 12/5/2005
From: Israel
Status: offline
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Hi TygerStripe! I was trying to understand your example but I'm not sure how it works. If you change the 3 for a 5 then that solution won't be right... What am I missing?
Shiron
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RE: LAP 02290100052 - 9/23/2008 10:27:55 PM
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TygerStripe
Posts: 48
Joined: 3/25/2008
From: United States
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That was a brain fart on my part. After I posted that about the 5 I realized that would result in an unsolvable puzzle. The solution would still work for the 4 in the middle, but the top 5 would be unsolvable, so I edited it and made that change the outer numbers to a 3 instead of a 5. I could have picked 2 or 4 as well for all the outer numbers and still had it correct. The point is how you apply it works for any number combination.
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RE: LAP 02290100052 - 9/26/2008 12:04:50 AM
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TygerStripe
Posts: 48
Joined: 3/25/2008
From: United States
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Probably true on a new thread. This is becoming a bit of a hijack. I'll go ahead and do that.
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