Here is a popular puzzle that went round my group of friends at University. Apparently the longer it took you to figure out, the cleverer you were - as it took Bill Gates weeks to solve.
Of course I solved it instantly, while my physics studying friend wrestled over it for several agonising days.
If you already know the answer - don’t tell anyone! And what do you think is the reason behind some people solving this puzzle instantly and some people taking a long time? (I prefer not to put it down to ‘cleverness’!) Perhaps it would be best not to read the comments either, unless you need a clue!
Can you solve ‘Petals around the rose’?
2 responses so far ↓
1 admin // Jul 16, 2007 at 11:27 am
I think that the key to how we solve this puzzle lies in the brains ability to pattern match - the right hemisphere is very good at pattern matching, and if you are right hemisphere dominated, or are well practiced at pattern matching, you will be likely to solve the puzzle faster.
“Straight line” left brain, logical thinkers are less likely to ’see’ the answer to the puzzle, and they will typically try and problem solve their way out of it, as my physics friend did by creating maths formulas that only worked some of the time. I remembering saying to him “but can’t you see it? it’s so obvious! count the PETALS around the ROSE” - but his brain just didn’t work in the same way mine did!
Eleanor
2 Pear // Jan 1, 2008 at 2:47 am
such an agonizing puzzle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i couldn’t solve it after struggling for so long & tried getting a solution online.. and after i read what Eleanor said about COUNTING…. i finally realised.. gosh
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