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No. 307:

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Permanent URL: https://mezzacotta.net/postcard/?comic=307

Recited from memory by: Jeffery M.

The author writes:

Another famous puzzle is the 'Water, gas and electricity' puzzle. It involves three cottages:

cottages

Let's label them '1', '2' & '3'. It also involves the three utilities water, gas, and electricity:

utilities

Let's label them 'A', 'B' & 'C'.

Now we need to place the three cottages on a piece of paper. Place them anywhere you like, it doesn't matter. Now you need to place the utilities on the same piece of paper. This is my progress so far:

progress

Now you need to connect all the utilities to all the cottages. So that's 'A' to '1', '2' & '3', 'B' to '1', '2' & '3' and 'C' to '1', '2' & '3'. I'll give you a minute to do that.

Easy, right? But there's a twist to the puzzle (or else it wouldn't be puzzling). No line may cross any other line. This means no going under other lines and no going above either. Try it now - you have ten minutes.

Not so easy now. Here is my solution:

solution

Now you are either one of two people - you could be in awe or you could be skeptical. If you are one of the people who were skeptical, well done. The image above is a fraud. 'C' is connected to '2' twice.

The purpose of this was to show you that not everything has a solution. The maze Preston is trapped in certainly doesn't. If you liked Preston, I'm sorry, he's not going to survive.