Ambiguous Superhero Object
Ring Catch Chain Trick
Get a set here:
From eBay:(best selecton) BUY NOW Ring Chain Catch
From Amazon: BUY NOW Ring and Chain Set
The physics of this trick in great detail with more slow motion: Ring Falling into a Chain: No Magic — Just Physics
Ring Catch Chain Trick: a solid ring will be caught by a loop of chain if it tumbles during its fall. By Newton's Third law, when the ring twists into and hits the chain, the impact transfers momentum to the end of the chain, which rises up and over the ring- seen here in 480 fps slow motion.
Poly Density Puzzle
Get the kit here:
From Educational Innovations: BUY NOW Polydensity Bottle Kit
Folow the link above for details of the physics explanation.
Poly Density Puzzle: my favorite science brain teaser- white beads and blue beads "float" oddly separated beneath the surface of a clear liquid. If the contents are mixed by shaking the container, the white beads gather at the top and the blue sink to bottom! Adding to the mystery; after about 30 seconds the two layers of beads will have slowly moved back to the middle. What is your guess as to the physics behind this behavior?
Shashibo Geometric Art
From Art of Play: BUY NOW : Shashibo Geometric Art
Shashibo Geometric Art: dissect a cube into 12 equal irregular tetrahedra, connect these pieces symmetrically with hinges, and add 36 magnets to create a device with more that 70 geometrically interesting and aesthetic configurations.
Impossible Bottle Sculpture Puzzle
Mr. Evans makes a variety of amazing impossible bottle sculptures:
From impossiblebottle.co.uk: Buy NOW Impossible Bottles by Philip Evans
Nice Impossible bottles are often available on Etsy:
From Etsy: BUY NOW Impossible Bottles
Impossible Bottle Sculpture Puzzle: seemingly impossible, but created with clever engineering, this “impossible” bottle contains a padlock and full deck of cards still in the wrapper (a cut out in the side of the box reveals that all the cards are inside). The puzzle aspect is to consider how the bottle was produced (I personally have some theories- but I do not know the secrets of this artist). I can tell you with high certainty that the bottle was never cut or altered in anyway, and it was not somehow formed around the objects. This bottle by Phil Evans is one of the best I’ve seen.
Dudeney's Dissection 3D Print
Get this set here!
From Etsy: BUY NOW: Dudeney's Dissection 3D Print
Dudeney's Dissection: an equilateral triangle canbe cut (dissected) into four pieces that will then assemble into a square. This 3D printed version comes as a puzzle- fit the pieces in each of two containers- a square and a triangle, which also makes it clear the two supplied shapes are of equal area. Fun fact: It is not known if a similar three piece dissection is possible. Also called Haberdasher's problem and described in 1907 by Henry Dudeney it is the only 4 piece solution known.
Impossible Arrow
One of many creative illusions and curiosities of Victoria Skye. See her work here:
Visit Now: Victoria's Illusion Art
Click here for to explore more "impossible objects"
Impossible Arrow: an arrow made of wood through the center of standard steel hex nut. The arrow was carved and somehow placed through the nut- neither the wood nor the steel nut was cut or glued to produce this object. Not impossible, but creating this does depend on the use of some obscure physical properties of wood (similar to the impossible nail sculpture).
Mirror Vision Puzzle
More than three versions of this puzzle out there. Get one here:
From eBay: BUY NOW: Mirror Vision Puzzle
Mirror Vision Puzzle: this Harry Potter themed puzzle has only 9 pieces but each supplies two parts of the final image- without the mirror one gets only half the picture. The top of each square is a corrugated lenticular composition of two images, and when viewed from the correct angle only one image can be seen directly, with the other reflected in the mirror, which combine in this case to reveal the famous phoenix bird of the HP stories. Flipping over the puzzle squares produces a second image to solve, this time a basilisk. An ingenious puzzle form from inventor/designer Mark Setteducati and sold by Mattel.
10 Hex Puzzle
This and other beautiful and well made puzzles are available on Etsy:
From Etsy: BUY NOW 10 Hex Puzzle
Two great resources about these polyhexs: polyform puzzler page and puzzleworld page
10 Hex Puzzle: this puzzle is comprised of pieces which are the set of all ways three and four hexagons can be joined with a common edge. There are 3 trihexs and 7 possible tetrahexs, and similar to pentominoes, these 10 polyhexs can assemble into a large hexagon. Amazingly there are exactly 12,290 solutions to this puzzle- but it’s still a challenge to find just one!
Anamorphic Harry Potter Puzzle
No longer in production but available on eBay:
From eBay: BUY NOW: Harry Potter On Reflection Puzzle
Mirror Anamorphic Harry Potter: the conical mirror of the silver container reflects and reveals the distorted scenes in this 200 piece jigsaw puzzle of the famous wizard and school. The shape of the mirror allows for a mathematical operation, a type of affine transformation, to map the distorted image of the puzzle to the restored image reflected by the mirror. Real magic!
Impossible Pipe Elbows
These are very hard to find- I had to make this one. Contact @physicsfun via DM if you really want one.
Many other types of impossible objects are avialable- see these links and videos: Impossible Objects
Impossible Pipe Elbows: made from standard pipe fittings held together only by their threads. No glue of any kind was used in its making. Design inspired by puzzle maker and artist Saul Bobroff.
Tessellating Geckos
Laser cut geckos are available here:
From Etsy: BUY NOW Tessellating Geckos
Tessellating Geckos: MC Escher inspired lizard cutouts interlock precisely to tile a surface with no overlaps or gaps. Laser cut from maple, walnut, and cherry wood by maker/artist Craig Caesar and inspired by MC Escher’s “Study of Regular Division of a Plane with Reptiles” 1939. G4G week: Martin Gardner wrote about the art and math of Escher in 1961- which helped create the popularity that his work has experienced ever since.
Impossible Nail
Nice versions are curretnly available from Etsy:
From Etsy: BUY NOW: Impossible Nail
Impossible Nail: An eighteen-penny nail driven through the inner notches of a solid piece of wood. The wood was notched and the nail added- no glue used or cuts made, and the nail is solid and in one piece. Not impossible, but creating this does depend on the use of some amazing physical properties of wood. I won’t reveal the method here but a quick search on YouTube produces a few how-to videos showing the process.
Pentominoes
Get this set here:
From Etsy: BUY NOW Hardwood Pentominoes
Many versions available here:
From Amazon: BUY NOW Pentominoes
The book by mathematician Solomon Golomb that started the polyonomo recreational math craze:
From Amazon: BUY NOW: Polyominoes
Pentominoes: The 12 possible arrangements of five identical squares joined edge to edge. Since 5x12=60, the pentominoes can tile a 6 x 10 rectangle with no gaps (2339 ways to do this- yet even finding one solution is a challenge). I love this beautiful set from artist/woodworker Ron Moore where each pentomino is made from a different kind of hard wood.
Cylindrical Lens Puzzle
A similar puzzle (but taking advantage of horizontal symmetry) available here:
From Educational Innovations: BUY NOW Cylindrical Lens Puzzle
Cylindrical Lens Puzzle: this cylinder of acrylic acts as lens that focuses light along a line rather than a point- and thus it can invert an image along its symmetry axis. Puzzle question: the word "GREEN" is flipped by this lens but the word "TOMATO" seems unaffected. Is the physics significantly different for red wavelengths as compare to green? Or is there another explanation/trick? Answer below.
Penrose Tiling Puzzle
This puzzle was produced and sold in the 1990s.
The individual tiles can be found on eBay (and sometimes the whole puzzle):
From eBay: Search NOW Penrose Pentaplex Puzzle
Wikipedia has the details on Penrose Tilings and their inventor Sir Roger Penrose (Recently won Nobel Prize!)
A nice basic version of Penrose Tilings is available here:
From Etsy: BUY NOW Penrose Tiles
Penrose Tiling Puzzle: a challenging puzzle with pieces that come in only two shapes. Sir Roger Penrose- who just yesterday won the Nobel prize in physics for his contributions to General Relativity- also discovered tessellations (tilings) that are aperiodic even though the two tile types are regularly shaped polygons. If one tries to shift a part of a Penrose tiling, the shifted part will not align or match up with any other part of the same tiling- all the way out to infinity! This puzzle, entitled “Perplexing Poultry”, created and sold by Penrose himself, uses polygons modified into crazy looking birds such that the tiles can only connect in specific ways to ensure the non-repetitive nature of the Penrose tiling structure. Shown here is one way these two tile types will fill the plane.
Trisected Cube
Get this puzzle here:
BUY NOW: Trisected Cube Puzzle
This puzzle came in my Curiosity Box subscrition. A great way to start collecting your own physics toys (and other brain food):
From the Vsauce team: BUY NOW: The Curiosity Box
Trisected Cube Puzzle: three identical pieces interlock to form a cube in this ingenious dissection puzzle. The cube is sliced following a helical path along a corner to corner diagonal, creating a smooth disassembly, and a smooth but surprisingly challenging initial reassembly. Invented by Robert Reid and designed by puzzle master Oskar van Deventer.