Lateral thinking puzzles can be either intransigently difficult or satisfyingly easy!

Whereas a mathematics or logic problem has more or less a single step-wise path to the solution, a creative thinking puzzle is usually about discovering possible paths and appears much more open ended. If the former type seems intractable then usually it is because either the conditions of the problem have not been understood or the solver has made an erroneous step in the logic. Not so with the lateral puzzle. Here there is often the sense that something is missing, that more information is required, leaving the solver feeling that his only recourse is mind reading, something few, if any, of us are equipped to do.

One of the most difficult types of lateral puzzle is the dissection puzzle of which the Englishman Henry Dudeney (1857-1930) was a master. His Haberdasher's Puzzle involves dissecting an equilateral triangle into four pieces that can be reassembled into a square (below).

While Dudeney's readers in 1903 must have spent long hours tearing out their hair by gas light, I'll bet my wig that Creativity Post readers will find the present offering far less troublesome. Previous puzzles in this column might have given no quarter but not so this week. Here I give you something so familar, with an answer so obvious, even my dyslexic dog could post it!

Spot the difference between the two quarters.

A hint will be given in the Comments section below on Wednesday and the solution will appear next Sunday

Last Week's Puzzle

To solve The Mysterious Maze Puzzle, follow the black line from A to B. Following Wednesday's clue, if the picture were seen as a photographic negative then it would originally be white! Congratulations to Irini for being the first one to tell us the answer!