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Missing Link (puzzle)

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There are 15 tiles and a gap, giving a maximum of 16! arrangements. However, the middle tiles of each four-tile chain are identical, and each position is equivalent to seven other positions obtained by rotating the entire puzzle (about its axis or upside-down), reducing the number of arrangements to
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The puzzle has four sides, each depicting a chain of a different color. Each side contains four tiles, except one which contains three tiles and a gap. The top and bottom rows can be rotated, and tiles can slide up or down into the gap. The objective is to scramble the tiles and then restore them to
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in their "Top 100 Games of 1981", expecting it to be "the torture of the season" but instead found it was "solvable by ordinary human beings and will not provoke a rash of how-to books".
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16! / 8 / 8 = 326,918,592,000. If the three long chains are also considered interchangeable, then the number of arrangements is further reduced to 16! / 8 / 8 / 6 = 54,486,432,000.
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The two middle rows cannot be rotated. To move tiles in these rows, you need to loop the tiles from one row to another, up and down.
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invented in 1981 by Steven P. Hanson and Jeffrey D. Breslow.
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Index


verification
improve this article
adding citations to reliable sources
"Missing Link" puzzle
news
newspapers
books
scholar
JSTOR
Learn how and when to remove this message

mechanical puzzle
Games
Combination puzzles
Mechanical puzzles
Games
Picture and solution
v
t
e
Rubik's Cube
Ernő Rubik
Larry Nichols
Uwe Mèffert
Tony Fisher
Panagiotis Verdes
Oskar van Deventer
Overview
Rubik's family cubes of all sizes

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