(upbeat rhythmic music)
- Yo, what's up, guys?
Welcome back.
First of all, I wanna say thank you to everybody
who supported me during the first merch launch,
it was a massive success.
So much so that we actually oversold on the black snapbacks,
apologize for the inconvenience.
But again, thank you.
And if you still wanna buy some stuff,
I know black T-shirts and long sleeves are going fast,
there's barely any left,
but we still got the white T-shirts,
and these white and black five-panel golf hats,
they're pretty sick.
So we still got those up on the site.
Also real quick,
I gave you guys a mission about three weeks ago
to order this puzzle,
and I said we'd solve it together.
Now, what I initially meant by that
was I was going to solve it and make a solve video,
and you guys can solve it while you watch the solve video.
I thought it'd be much cooler if I live streamed it.
So right now I'm gearing up, hopefully,
to live stream the solve of this puzzle with you guys.
We're aiming for Friday,
it'll be somewhere around 3:00 or 4:00 p.m.,
Eastern Time, tentatively.
Today, the Stomachion puzzle,
I think that's how it's pronounced.
The oldest puzzle known to man,
created by Archimedes in 200 BC,
what's that, like 2200 years old?
Here's what's crazy about this.
I'm gonna read off this little paper here.
So there's an amazing story about the Archimedes scrolls,
The Palimpsest,
which was cut up, written over,
and eventually recovered through a journey
of more than 2000 years.
The Stomachion puzzle was found on these scrolls.
And there is also a mathematician, Bill Cutler, in 2003,
found 536 unique ways of solving this puzzle.
It sounds like a lot,
but there's probably millions of ways
of not solving it, right?
So anyways, without any further ado, guys,
do like this video if you do enjoy this content,
it really makes a difference.
Subscribe if you wanna see more of these,
and let's get into the puzzle.
All right, here we are.
Okay, I wasn't expecting to do this puzzle this week.
I had some other puzzles on the way which didn't arrive yet,
but this one I thought was pretty cool
because of the fact that it is
the oldest puzzle known to man, apparently.
So it says here, "The Stomachion Puzzle,"
I believe that's how it's pronounced,
is "The oldest known puzzle by Archimedes, 287 to 212 BC.
The square can be made of 536 unique ways,
yet extremely difficult to find even one."
Difficult doesn't mean impossible, but sometimes it does.
Start up the timer and just have at her.
It's, I mean, it's an interesting puzzle,
when you have no real place of reference,
like there are 536 ways to solve this puzzle.
What could possibly, you know, obviously, like, I mean,
even right angles are not,
are not necessarily the right solution here,
because look, I can pretty much fit two pieces here
and maybe another sliver in here, who knows.
Actually, let's try that.
You know what I mean?
Like this makes it super awkward.
Is that a fit or is that not a fit?
You know what I mean?
You look at that corner,
it's not necessarily plumb or square.
Like, this is strange, it's definitely difficult.
Let's start with the bigger ones, I think,
get those out of the way.
And I feel like those tiny, tiny spaces might be too,
yeah, those are definitely too small.
So this one does not go in a corner.
Oh, there you go, that's definitely a corner piece.
So we're just going to work around that,
and I believe probably one of the 536 solutions require
this piece to be in a corner.
I hope, anyways.
See, I mean, this really messes me up here.
'Cause like, does that mean that that goes like,
uh, that would be a fits?
It kind of does.
Rough, rough, rough, rough, rough, rough.
I just want pieces that fit nicely, that's all I want.
Like, that doesn't fit nicely.
There is a piece that fits nicely,
that's the piece we're going with, by the way, all right?
It doesn't look like there's gonna be,
though, I'll be honest.
It looks a little bit, looks like, oh God.
Oh, no.
No, so we've done these ones, that's a no,
put them off to the side here.
That's a no, just want one nice fit.
Doesn't look like that's gonna happen.
Is that it?
That's a right angle.
Let's see if we can build off that.
That might be interesting.
How does one even figure out how many solutions
there are to this?
I mean, that's either a crazy mathematical formula
or just a lot of time spent trying to sell it.
He's like, "Listen, I've come up with 536.
There's probably one more, I don't know."
I think that's a bad play here,
I think we've, what we've gotta do is fill this out.
Sorry.
You've got mail, remember that?
I shouldn't be answering emails or text messages
while I'm solving puzzles.
Okay, emails done, my bad.
Shouldn't this just be like,
all right, let's just go.
It's enough playing around here, let's just go.
Easier said than done.
This is a, oh,
no, see there's like a little,
like that means it doesn't fit.
It's even hard just to even,
let alone solve this puzzle,
find two pieces that don't do
the little dance jig here that they're doing.
You know what I mean?
Oh man, okay.
Ooh, that, my friends, is a beautiful fit.
Yes, indeed.
Does it go there?
I don't know, but those two pieces fit really nicely.
Nice.
I just feel like we gotta keep working on this part.
Oh, that's really pretty.
Okay, we're getting somewhere.
This is not as bad as I thought,
famous last words, question mark.
It's not even like,
that's not even a real corner up here, by the way.
Oh, come on, we're a 1/4 of the way done.
Let me just start back at scratch
and find some right angles, perhaps, maybe.
Well, that looks like a, that's a right angle.
I mean, that's looking like a hot snack right there,
except for this part, that kind of overlaps,
but you never know, right?
That could very well be intentional.
Oh, let's go.
This part worries me a little bit,
but what if it's something like this?
Just bear with me, okay?
And then maybe not that.
What are these long pieces
that just have nothing to do with anything either?
Clearly not.
Yeah, also there's no room for this one,
so that doesn't work.
Maybe I should've gotten...
Okay, so these are kind of cool together.
Maybe not this one so much, but these two definitely are,
and that that's okay, as well.
Let's prop this one back up in the corner.
I like the way these two interact with each other, as well.
Oh, aw,
I thought those were really nice fit there for a second.
Okay.
This must be so riveting for you guys to watch. (laughs)
Oh, it is mind numbing.
For all I know,
this whole configuration could be terribly wrong
and I'm just like,
"I've gone awry trying to come up with ways
for that to fit somewhere."
On the other hand that looks like a great fit.
Let's go, right there, baby.
Hmm, yep, that works out.
That definitely checks out.
It's kind of satisfying, I like it.
Right angle here?
I think so.
Maybe up top here?
Comme ca.
What do you think?
Yes, no?
Oh my God,
It's like the pieces are just falling together,
and then I'm gonna get to the end and be like,
"Oh yeah, this, there you go, exactly."
Oh God, there's no way I can make this one fit now.
Oh no, it was off to such a good start.
What if I, um, you know what?
I'll just take this out of the equation for a second.
The angle doesn't even work.
Opposite, what does that give me?
Gives me like a weird thing here.
Ooh, that's actually very nice.
I like that quite a bit.
Okay.
Oh, hello.
I mean, at this point we're just on fire, I think.
I mean, nothing is gonna fit in that corner,
so that can't be right.
Again, with these, though.
Oh, that's not so bad, is it?
There's some weird shapes here, huh?
Like that looks kinda good.
Oh, that would have been, come on.
No, no, no, no.
This one, obviously, doesn't fit anywhere,
well, maybe it does.
We're getting kinda close, getting kinda close.
I wish that'd fit.
I got three pieces left.
One, what if I just like,
I feel like there's a piece missing.
No, it's the same probably amount of volume there.
You know what I mean?
What do I take out at this point, this guy?
No, this, let's take this out here.
Let's keep this.
Um, like, I don't even know if that's right.
Hmm.
Like the difference between this and this,
could be the difference of me solving it or not.
That's something I don't like to think about.
It's really not a fun thing to think about.
If I could find a piece that fits there,
that would be pretty epic, I feel.
Oh, Oh, it looks like the German Flag going on,
or Belgian, depends on the orientation.
Alright, let's go.
That looks great so far.
That one doesn't fit, nope, no.
Maybe something like that?
No, well, that works out.
Aha-ha, I gotcha. (laughs)
I know you guys are probably scared
that I ruined everything.
I got a picture for the backup, just in case,
because I don't think that that was the right solution.
But in case we are stuck, we can always go back to it.
How did this one fit again?
Comme ca.
And then we have that longer triangle,
with the right angle one.
Here we go, this one here.
So that was, I like this a lot.
Ooh, that's nicer,
the way they all come to that point there.
I like that a lot, that is key.
Oh, hello.
This is beautiful, I like this a lot.
We've got like a fresh slate,
a nice clean slate to go with here.
See how they're all intersecting on the corners.
I feel like that might be key here,
otherwise it's just chaos.
See, like, oh, I don't know about this.
I like the intersecting parts.
Like this one here might actually fit.
No, this one?
Yes, boom.
See what I mean?
It's a simple as that.
That works for now.
This one of the same length?
Nope.
Oh, that works even better.
And we intersect at that point, which is fantastic.
Just to see, I wanna see if I'm not using,
if I don't have the same thing that I was doing earlier.
So here's the picture that we had taken.
Oh, so we have the same bottom,
but we did something differently here.
Is it just reversed?
How did I do this?
No, it's different, sweet.
All right, I think we may be on to something.
So yeah, I figured if they hit the corners,
that's gonna be the key here.
Now these elongated ones are the ones
that are giving me the hardest time.
I feel like we have to, see, that's what I like to see.
Come on, come on, come on.
Let's go, let's go.
Half an hour, one out of 536 possible solutions.
I have defeated Archimedes, The Great,
well, I mean, obviously he created this puzzle.
I wonder if like people go through like,
"Hey, I'm gonna create a puzzle.
I'm just gonna take a square
and draw a bunch of lines, cut them up,
and then be like, there you go."
Like, how are puzzles created?
Or are they like,
"Yes, I wanna make a puzzle,
specifically with 536 solutions."
So here's what's cool about this box
is that now that we have it solved,
now that we have it solved,
it can finally fit in the box, which is nice.
And, there you go, the Stomachion,
world's oldest puzzle.
Well, hot dang.
There it is, there it is, solved.
Neatly packaged, check that out.
Ba-da!
Pretty satisfying,
I'm definitely gonna play with this again
because it's something that you can just leave
on the coffee table and have people mess with,
without ever solving it,
just to pass the time while waiting for something.
I think that's kinda cool.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
Guys, thanks so much for watching
and we'll see you on the next video.
Peace.
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