UCLA Olga Radko Endowed Math Circle

2/21/2016 -- Beginners: Cracking the 15 Puzzle - Part 4

Our main goal for this section is to learn how to determine whether or not a solution exists for the 15 Puzzle. This week, we tie everything together by proving that configurations of the 15 puzzle with opposite parities cannot be solved, and also introduce some logic to show why this is not sufficient.