The term polyomino was introduced in 1953 as a jocular extension of the word domino. A polyomino is a simply connected set of equal-sized squares, each joined to at least one other along an edge. The simpler polyomino shapes are shown in Figure 19A. Somewhat more fascinating are the pentominoes, of which there are exactly 12 forms (Figure 19B). Asymmetrical pieces, which have different shapes when they are flipped over, are counted as one.
The number of distinct polyominoes of any order is a function of the number of squares in each, but, as yet, no general formula has been found. It has been shown that there are 35 types of hexominoes and 108 types of heptominoes, if the dubious heptomino with an interior “hole” is included.
Recreations with polyominoes include a wide variety of problems in combinatorial geometry, such as forming desired shapes and specified designs, covering a chessboard with polyominoes in accordance with prescribed conditions, etc. Two illustrations may suffice.
The 35 hexominoes, having a total area of 210 squares, would seem to admit of arrangement into a rectangle 3 × 70, 5 × 42, 6 × 35, 7 × 30, 10 × 21, or 14 × 15; however, no such rectangle can be formed.
Can the 12 pentominoes, together with one square tetromino, form an 8 × 8 checkerboard? A solution of the problem was shown around 1935. It is not known how many solutions there are, but it has been estimated to be at least 1,000. In 1958, by use of a computer, it was shown that there are 65 solutions in which the square tetromino is exactly in the centre of the checkerboard.
Piet Hein of Denmark, also known for his invention of the mathematical games known as hex and tac tix, stumbled upon the fact that all the irregular shapes that can be formed by combining three or four congruent cubes joined at their faces can be put together to form a larger cube. There are exactly seven such shapes, called Soma Cubes; they are shown in Figure 20. No two shapes are alike, although the fifth and sixth are mirror images of each other. The fact that these seven pieces (comprising 27 “unit” cubes) can be reassembled to form one large cube is indeed remarkable.
Many interesting solid shapes can be formed from the seven Soma Cubes, shapes resembling, for example, a sofa, a chair, a castle, a tunnel, a pyramid, and so on. Even the assembling of the seven basic pieces into a large cube can be done in more than 230 essentially different ways.
As a recreation, the Soma Cubes are fascinating. With experience, many persons find that they can solve Soma problems mentally. Psychologists who have used them find that the ability to solve Soma problems is roughly correlated with general intelligence, although there are some strange anomalies at both ends of the distribution of intelligence. In any event, people playing with the cubes do not appear to want to stop; the variety of interesting structures possible seems endless.
There is a wide variety of puzzles involving coloured square tiles and coloured cubes. In one, the object is to arrange the 24 three-colour patterns, including repetitions, that can be obtained by subdividing square tiles diagonally, using three different colours, into a 4 × 6 rectangle so that each pair of touching edges is the same colour and the entire border of the rectangle is the same colour.
More widely known perhaps is the 30 Coloured Cubes Puzzle. If six colours are used to paint the faces there result 2,226 different combinations. If from this total only those cubes that bear all six colours on their faces are selected, a set of 30 different cubes is obtained; two cubes are regarded as “different” if they cannot be placed side by side so that all corresponding faces match. Many fascinating puzzles arise from these coloured squares and cubes; many more could be devised. Some of them have appeared commercially at various times under different names, such as the Mayblox Puzzle, the Tantalizer, and the Katzenjammer.
A revival of interest in coloured-cube problems was aroused by the appearance of a puzzle known as Instant Insanity, consisting of four cubes, each of which has its faces painted white, red, green, and blue in a definite scheme. The puzzle is to assemble the cubes into a 1 × 1 × 4 prism such that all four colours appear on each of the four long faces of the prism. Since each cube admits of 24 different orientations, there are 82,944 possible prismatic arrangements; of these only two are the required solutions.
This puzzle was soon superseded by Rubik’s Cube, developed independently by Ernő Rubik (who obtained a Hungarian patent in 1975) and Terutoshi Ishigi (who obtained a Japanese patent in 1976). The cube appears to be composed of 27 smaller cubes, or cubelets; in its initial state, each of the six faces of the cube is made up of nine cubelet faces all of the same colour. In the commercial versions of the puzzle, an internal system of pivots allows any layer of nine cubelets to be rotated with respect to the rest, so that successive rotations about the three axes cause the cubelet faces to become scrambled. The challenge of restoring a scrambled cube to its original configuration is formidable, inasmuch as more than 1019 states can be reached from a given starting condition. A thriving literature quickly developed for the exposition of systematic solutions (based on group theory) of scrambled cubes.