MODELING AND SOLVING SELF-REFERENTIAL PUZZLES

Abstract

The so-called self-referential puzzles are a very interesting kind of logic puzzles,aiming at developing the skill of logical thinking. A self-referential puzzle consists of asequence of questions about the puzzle itself. In this paper, we shall show some selfreferentialpuzzles, demonstrate how to model and solve them as propositional logicproblems, and how to mechanically generate new puzzles. For this, we shall make use ofthe specific advantages of Mozart/Oz system – the finite domain constraint programminglanguage and environment.We shall also show some new puzzles, according to our best knowledge not yet publishedelsewhere. The program in Mozart/Oz using our method generated these puzzles.

Keywords

• self-referential puzzles
• logic programming
• finite domain constraint programming
• Mozart/Oz