Nine points are disposed in a square on the game panel.
You have to connect these 9 points with 4 straight lines (horizontal, vertical or diagonal) that can be drawn
in one run, i.e. without interruption or lifting your pen from the game panel (and without returning).
Remember that you only have 4 straight line segments, and that all the points have to be connected!
Although it may seem incredible at first sight, there is a solution for this problem.
Once you have seen the solution, the fun is over.
So, give it a thorough try before asking for the solution.
I used this teaser (and some others) quite a number of times to illustrate courses about creativity, divergent or lateral thinking and conceptual frames.
Nine times out of ten, students react with a:
- "But you didn't say we could go outside the square"
- "Nobody said you had to stay within the square!"
It illustrates very clearly that self-imposed limitations or following common lines of thinking, can be important obstacles to find a solution.
As it "sells well", the Web offers a lot of information on divergent and lateral thinking. I just would like to mention two references:
- The "authorised" web-site of Edward De Bono the father of the concept of "lateral thinking"
- and a rather old (1979) lecture paper where De Bono explains what it is and how he coined the word
- While you are at it (and although it has nothing to see with this subject) take a closer look at the very interesting web-site where this paper is published: Schumacher UK an organisation that promotes human scale and sustainable systems for social, economic and environmental development