Puzzle No. 025
Picarats: 25


In the drawing below, 10 coins are arranged to form an equilateral triangle.

The triangle is pointing up right now, but can you get it to point down by moving three of the coins?














Hint One: If you flipped the position of the base and the top rows of the triangle, the triangle would point the opposite direction. But moving the top rows of the triangle requires you to move six coins.

Why don't you try to move the base row?

Hint Two: You don't really think it's impossible to flip the triangle by moving three coins, do you?! Come on now!

Think about it. You can only move three coins. You're dealing with a three-sided shape. This couldn't be a coincidence, now could it?

Hint Three: There are three corners on a triangle. Since the triangle pictured here is pointing upward, only one corner points upward. The other two corners point downward.

You are trying to reverse the direction of the triangle, so why not focus on rearranging the corners?

Solution:













That's right!

The interesting thing about this puzzle is the way the whole triangle changes shape with the simple shifting of a few coins.

The trick is to think about the corners on the first triangle. Then it's east to see the changes you need to make.