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Can you solve the control room riddle? - Dennis Shasha

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TEDEd Animation

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As your country's top spy, you must infiltrate the headquarters of the evil syndicate, find the secret control panel, and deactivate their death ray. But your reconnaissance team is spotty, and you have only limited information about the control panel's whereabouts. Can you solve the control room riddle and deactivate their weapon in time? Dennis Shasha shows you how.

Additional Resources for you to Explore

Much of this educator’s work concerns a mixture of logic with educated guesses. This educator teaches a class called Heuristic Problem Solving in which students face puzzles every week and write computer programs to solve them. Some of those students have turned those puzzles into two or more people computer games. A few of those games even include an Artificially Intelligent opponent.

Please visit the doctor ecco site to create an account and try the games. The Gravitational Voronoi, No Tipping, and Pandemic games might be a good place to start. Give them a try and see how you do.

Like paper and pencil challenges? This logic book might just be what you are looking for: The Puzzling Adventures of Dr. Ecco. For another book that is much like the previous one, take a look for any logic book by Raymond Smullyan. Try some logic puzzles and see how things go.

Love this riddle? Try another by the same educator: Can you solve the temple riddle? - Dennis E. Shasha

Love the challenge of puzzles and riddles? TED-Ed has more for you - take a look at the following:

Can you solve the locker riddle? - Lisa Winer

The famously difficult green-eyed logic puzzle - Alex Gendler

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About TED-Ed Animations

TED-Ed Animations feature the words and ideas of educators brought to life by professional animators. Are you an educator or animator interested in creating a TED-Ed Animation? Nominate yourself here »

Meet The Creators

  • Educator Dennis E. Shasha
  • Script Editor Alex Gendler
  • Producer Zedem Media
  • Director Michael Kalopaidis
  • Sound Designer Andreas Trachonitis
  • Animator Maria Savva, Andria Pourouti
  • Artist Jeanne Bornet
  • Narrator Addison Anderson

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