Disentanglement - Wood & Rope

Wood and rope or string disentanglement puzzles have long been a favorite types of puzzles for many, many people. Somehow the more risk of tying them up in knots the more fun people have. Guess there is always the theory than you can cut the rope and rejoin it at any time so you do have the ultimate safety net so to speak.

There are many different types of string or rope disentanglement puzzles, and several categories of them can be identified based on their general solution idea.

One of the simplest of them is where you can run a loop along the string to the end and over some obstruction, freeing the string and solving the puzzle.

The first know commercially made string puzzles were advertised for sale in Jerome Cardan’s catalog called “De Rerum Varietate” which was published in 1557. So they really have been around for a very long time and they are some of the earliest puzzles know.

Many merchants recognised the appeal of these puzzles.   With their simplicity to make and the relatively easy solution they began making paper versions to advertise their products. They were used to advertise everything from The Paris Exhibition of 1889 to The Edison Mazda Lamp Puzzle of 1912-1913 and hundreds of others from Michelin to Dixie Shoes, from Everett Pianos to Fairmont Cream and everything in between.

On this website you can find the Traffic Lights puzzle which is also a good example of this type of wood and rope disentanglement type puzzle.