Age of Puzzles - Nob Yoshigahara

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Nob Yoshigahara
by Serhiy Grabarchuk

Nob Yoshigahara

Every century has bright, creative, and smart people who are opening to the whole Puzzle World's community new horizons. A Japanese puzzle guru and genius, Nobuyuki Yoshigahara (1936-2004), or Nob as everybody used to call him, was one of such puzzle leaders.

It is very difficult to give a simple and brief illustration to Nob's puzzle work since his ingenuity and diapason of his interests and achievements was quite incomparable. Also, Nob was a big Friend of mine, so I decided to tell about him a story which will show his achievements and presents many of his puzzles I especially like.

The Number Tree Rule by Nob.

Numbers

Numbers were a big passion of Nob, and his ingenuity in this field was amusing. In every number he could find some interesting rule or property. The following puzzle Nob considered as his masterpiece.
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Numbers which make a tree shown at left are put in its nodes observing a certain rule. Which number should be put instead of the question mark?

Origami Sheets

This nice puzzle I got from Nob in his message of September 5, 2001. Origami is incredible popular in Japan, so different Origami puzzles and creations were Nob's natural interest. Let me use his wording to describe the puzzle:

"Many Origami sheets are scattered on a table. Purpose: Find the shortest route from Start to Goal. Rule: When you came UP from a sheet to another sheet, your next move should be DOWN, vice versa." (Your "jumps" always should be only between two neighboring sheets which overlap one another).

To print the puzzle just click the image below to go to a new window; then you can print the puzzle diagram.