Related papers: A new perspective of paramodulation complexity by …
In this paper, we present a curious experiment with the hot list strategy in solving sliding block puzzles by paramodulation. The hot list strategy is one of the look-ahead strategies using paramodulation in automated reasoning. We define…
We study the puzzle graphs of hexagonal sliding puzzles of various shapes and with various numbers of holes. The puzzle graph is a combinatorial model which captures the solvability and the complexity of sequential mechanical puzzles.…
How can we predict the difficulty of a Sudoku puzzle? We give an overview of difficulty rating metrics and evaluate them on extensive dataset on human problem solving (more then 1700 Sudoku puzzles, hundreds of solvers). The best results…
In combinatorial reconfiguration, the reconfiguration problems on a vertex subset (e.g., an independent set) are well investigated. In these problems, some tokens are placed on a subset of vertices of the graph, and there are three natural…
Arithmetic puzzle games provide a controlled setting for studying difficulty in mathematical reasoning tasks, a core challenge in adaptive learning systems. We investigate the structural determinants of difficulty in a class of integer…
We propose a new kind of sliding-block puzzle, called Gourds, where the objective is to rearrange 1 x 2 pieces on a hexagonal grid board of 2n + 1 cells with n pieces, using sliding, turning and pivoting moves. This puzzle has a single…
The 15 puzzle is a classic reconfiguration puzzle with fifteen uniquely labeled unit squares within a $4 \times 4$ board in which the goal is to slide the squares (without ever overlapping) into a target configuration. By generalizing the…
This work investigates the reasoning and planning capabilities of foundation models and their scalability in complex, dynamic environments. We introduce PuzzlePlex, a benchmark designed to assess these capabilities through a diverse set of…
Solving Sudoku puzzles is one of the most popular pastimes in the world. Puzzles range in difficulty from easy to very challenging; the hardest puzzles tend to have the most empty cells. The current paper explains and compares three…
We study a family of sorting match puzzles on grids, which we call permutation match puzzles. In this puzzle, each row and column of a $n \times n$ grid is labeled with an ordering constraint -- ascending (A) or descending (D) -- and the…
The mathematical structure of the widely popular Sudoku puzzles is akin to typical hard constraint satisfaction problems that lie at the heart of many applications, including protein folding and the general problem of finding the ground…
In this paper we try to answer the question "What constitutes Sudoku difficulty rating across different Sudoku websites?" Using two distinct methods that can both solve every Sudoku puzzle, I propose two new metrics to characterize Sudoku…
As language models master existing reasoning benchmarks, we need new challenges to evaluate their cognitive frontiers. Puzzle-solving events are rich repositories of challenging multimodal problems that test a wide range of advanced…
The success of Large Language Models (LLMs) in human-AI collaborative decision-making hinges on their ability to provide trustworthy, gradual, and tailored explanations. Solving complex puzzles, such as Sudoku, offers a canonical example of…
This paper presents a systematic method to solve difficult 9 x 9 Sudoku puzzles by hand. While computer algorithms exist to solve these puzzles, these algorithms are not good for human's to use because they involve too many steps and…
We study the complexity of a particular class of board games, which we call `slide and merge' games. Namely, we consider 2048 and Threes, which are among the most popular games of their type. In both games, the player is required to slide…
This work explores the relationship between solution space and time complexity in the context of the $\textbf{P}$ vs. $\textbf{NP}$ problem, particularly through the lens of the sliding tile puzzle and root finding algorithms. We focus on…
We introduce higher-dimensional cubical sliding puzzles that are inspired by the classical 15 Puzzle from the 1880s. In our puzzles, on a $d$-dimensional cube, a labeled token can be slid from one vertex to another if it is topologically…
Existing reasoning benchmarks for large language models (LLMs) frequently fail to capture authentic creativity, often rewarding memorization of previously observed patterns. We address this shortcoming with Sudoku-Bench, a curated benchmark…
The Sudoku puzzle has achieved worldwide popularity recently, and attracted great attention of the computational intelligence community. Sudoku is always considered as Satisfiability Problem or Constraint Satisfaction Problem. In this…