new puzzle challenge

[Claudio L.]

(04-04-2015 03:06 PM)Don Shepherd Wrote:  Claudio, that is great work, thank you.

Can you clarify, is there only one real solution, the others being reflections or rotations of the one? The puzzle-maker claimed several solutions, but I have a feeling that they are all reflections/rotations of the original.

Don

There's only one "true" solution. The rest are rotations and mirror images.
There's all kinds of interesting observations on this problem.
For example, I replaced the routine CHKINNER to always store the solution instead of checking the inner ring, to obtain all the outer ring solutions:

Code:


@@ CHKINNER REPLACEMENT THAT ACCEPTS ALL SOLUTIONS
   << 12 DUPN 12 ->LIST 1 ->LIST SOLUTIONS SWAP + 'SOLUTIONS' STO >>

Turns out that starting with the number 3 as the first variable, there's 160 solutions of the outer ring (actually 80 if you remove the mirrors). Among these sets, only 2 (one and its mirror) will pass the inner ring check.
Starting with number 4, there's 184 solutions to the outer ring (actually 92), but none of them will pass the inner ring check.