This is a list of puzzles which have been proven impossible. An impossible puzzle is a puzzle that cannot be solved by following the directions or criteria for that puzzle.
- Mutilated chessboard problem
- Some variations of Fifteen puzzle
- Three-colouring the edges of the Petersen graph
- Seven Bridges of Königsberg
- Water, gas, and electricity
- Three cups problem
Famous quotes containing the words list of, list, impossible and/or puzzles:
“Thirty—the promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thinning brief-case of enthusiasm, thinning hair.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“Modern tourist guides have helped raised tourist expectations. And they have provided the natives—from Kaiser Wilhelm down to the villagers of Chichacestenango—with a detailed and itemized list of what is expected of them and when. These are the up-to- date scripts for actors on the tourists’ stage.”
—Daniel J. Boorstin (b. 1914)
“I have this very moment finished reading a novel called The Vicar of Wakefield [by Oliver Goldsmith].... It appears to me, to be impossible any person could read this book through with a dry eye and yet, I don’t much like it.... There is but very little story, the plot is thin, the incidents very rare, the sentiments uncommon, the vicar is contented, humble, pious, virtuous—but upon the whole the book has not at all satisfied my expectations.”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)
“Nothing puzzles me more than time and space; and yet nothing troubles me less, as I never think about them.”
—Charles Lamb (1775–1834)