I also think it is the Hoffman packing puzzle. An article about it is in "The Mathematical Gardner", edited by David Klarner (reprinted now by Dover, I think the new version is called "Mathematical Recreations : A Collection in Honor of Martin Gardner. ") The article is "Packing Problems and Inequalities", by D.G. Hoffman. Hoffman's problem is: "Fit twenty-seven blocks, measuring A x B x C into a cubic box with sides of A + B + C. A, B and C must be different and the smallest dimension must be larger than (A + B + C) / 4." Also look at a puzzle called "Perfect Packing", designed by Donald Knuth and made by George Miller (http://www.puzzlepalace.com/#puzzle=200625) which looks at the case where the smallest dimension is exactly equal to (A=B=C)/4. Stan Isaacs 210 East Meadow Drive Palo Alto, CA 94306 stan@isaacs.com On Mar 24, 2013, at 4:51 PM, Hans Havermann wrote:
This sounds like Dean Hoffman's 1978 packing puzzle. Do a Google search to see if anyone out there is making/selling them. I got mine in the 1980s from Bill Cutler with the blocks measuring 15x18x22 deci-inches.
On Mar 24, 2013, at 7:29 PM, Cris Moore <moore@santafe.edu> wrote:
A friend of mine had a nice magic cube puzzle. It was something like this: a 30x30x30 box, containing 27 almost-cubes, each of which was 9x10x11. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Where would I find one?
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