Of all I did as a poet, I do not obtain any vanity. I had, as contemporary, good poets, better ones lived before me, and afterwards, too. However, to be the only of my century that have a good sight in this difficult science of colours, yes I am proud of that, and I am aware to be superior to many wise. J. W. von Goethe (1829)

The colours of logic
By Toni Baldi

It is a very common habit to use numbers, symbols, paintings or geometrical figures for solving games and puzzles that are aimed to prove the logical-deductive skills The present game, in which the search of solution is also based on reasoning, makes use of colours, instead. This choice has to do not only with the satisfaction of an esthetical request, but actually with the following three reasons:

• colours are messengers of a universal language, that creates emotions and lights up fantasy;
• colours have the capacity of attracting people to play, much more than games that require logical reasoning;
• the colours used for the solution of logical quizzes have the capability of stimulating and developing the activities of the right hemisphere of the brain, which is strictly related to creativity, images and intuition, as it has been discovered by the American psycho-biologist Roger Walcott Sperry (Nobel Prize for medicine in 1981).

The rules of the game

The rules of the game are nearly the same of Sudoku, with a few added ones that are aimed to exalt its logical feature.
A puzzle of 81 pieces has to be filled in with 9 colours. A certain number of pieces, that changes according to the difficulty level, is already placed in the starting set, in a pre-definite location. In order to complete the puzzle, the missing pieces have to be placed in a way that in each of the nine boxes constituting the whole set, each of the horizontal rows and of the vertical columns will contain pieces of different colours.

Example:

Palette

Differently from Sudoku, in which it is possible to clear without limits the boxes that are being filled in, until the reach of the final solution, “The colours of logics” allows, in its toughest version (Expert level) to make a maximum of three mistakes, after that the game is over and the solution is shown up. In the simplest version (beginner), beside the limit of three mistakes allowed, it is possible to use the help three times before the game is over and the solution is provided.The “Beginner” version is addressed to children aged from 11 to 14, while the “Expert” version is addressed to adult users.

Solution

About the Author

Toni Baldi, from Palermo, journalist with the hobby of painting, a Master degree in Science of Communications, lives and works in Rome. He collaborated with the newspaper “Liberazione” and the magazines “Città d’Utopia”, “Polizia e Democrazia” and “Previdenza Agricola”. At present he works at INPS Headquarter, in the Press Office, he is editor-in-chief of the internal newsletter “Fatti&Notizie”, and he collaborates with the monthly magazine “Liberoreporter”.
In 1998, together with Sebastiano Gulisano, journalist of the weekly magazine “Avvenimenti”, he published a book “Un delitto inconfessabile” (“An unmentionable crime”), Datanews Editors, Rome.