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TILING PUZZLES: DISSECTION TYPE
EGG OF COLUMBUS
The Egg of Columbus is a puzzle consisting of a flat egg-like shape divided into nine pieces by straight cuts. Like a tangram, the goal of the puzzle is to rearrange the pieces to form other specific shapes. Owing to its curved outline, Egg of Columbus puzzles yield shapes with both straight and curved sides - a geometric upgrade compared to the standard straight-edged tangram shapes!
The earliest known examples were produced in Germany by Richter, a manufacturing company. Production ceased in 1963 but since restarted in 2008.
An interesting aside, the Egg of Columbus actually refers to an epochal story about Christopher Columbus. The story goes that once upon upon a dinner, in 1492, certain Spanish noble men began professing that the discovery of America had been no great achievement and that given time, anyone could have done it! In response, Columbus is said to have picked up an egg and placed a wager that none of his critics would be able to make it stand up on its end without any help. They failed of course. And when they had all tried, Columbus simply cracked the end slightly and balanced the egg vertically on the flattened end.
The moral of the story? A challenge is only simple once you know how to pull it off – the triumph is in having the courage to try something new and the grit to keep working towards the goal.