The World's Most Challenging Three Dimensional Puzzle

Winner of the Parents' Choice Gold Award, this is the three-dimensional puzzle that can stump a member of MENSA as easily as the resident sudoku expert. The puzzle presents a seemingly simple challenge: place 36 colored towers of varying heights on the base to form a perfect 6 x 6 x 6 cube--with one devious stipulation--none of the six colors may be repeated in any row or column. Created by MIT mathematician Dr. Derrick Niederman, the puzzle was inspired by an 18th Century mathematical conundrum known as The Problem Of The 36 Officers (which eventually proved to be unsolvable). While this puzzle does indeed have a solution, with one quadrillion (10¹⁵) possible moves, it requires patience, abstract thinking, and persistence to find it. Includes 36 towers of six different colors and heights and a gray plastic base. Ages 8 and up. 6 1/3" H x 4 3/4" W x 6 1/3" D. (1 1/4 lbs)