The Pardoner's Puzzle

The Pardoner's Puzzle

This is the start of what I think might be quite a long series of articles taken from The Canterbury Puzzles, by Henry Dudeney. Dudeney was a prolific puzzle creator and was born in 1857, in Sussex. He had decades worth of puzzles in long running columns, including for the Strand Magazine and they have been kept alive by constant referrals by the king of maths columns; Martin Gardner, in the later 20th century. The Canterbury Puzzles were made to emulate the style of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and the book is comprised of around 100 puzzles, each of which fits the form "The x's Puzzle".

Today I'm going to show you The Pardoner's Puzzle:

 You are a pilgrim currently residing in the coloured in town. Your aim is to visit all 63 other towns by taking 15 straight line pilgrimages along the roads. You can end anywhere you like, but the missing road at the bottom is not a mistake. How can you complete your journey?

Answer below...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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What I quite like about this puzzle is that even if you start from the top corner of an 8x8 grid (without the missing road) and spiral inwards, you can still only do it in 15, which sets a lower limit on the number of moves. Is it always possible in 15 no matter where you start? I don't know, but I'm going to work on it.

Also the answer appears to be slightly non unique. Here's a different solution from one of my students:

The Library of Babel

The Library of Babel

Organising a Tournament using Mathematics

Organising a Tournament using Mathematics