Boxes and Booze 4/6/24 Boxes and Booze 4/6/24

Nuclear Option

In the 1930’s, Columbia University physicist Isidor Isaac Rabi set out to determine the nuclear spin and associated magnetic moment of atoms in his molecular beam laboratory.

MRI puzzle by Benjamin Heidt

Boxes and Booze 1/6/24 Boxes and Booze 1/6/24

Cupping Season

I’m feeling symbolic and nostalgic all at once to start this new year.

Boxes and Booze 4/16/22 Boxes and Booze 4/16/22

Ze Tomago

There are a few well known makers who have eggcelled at [making eggs] but none are quite so prolific as Australian dentist Stephen Chin, who has made, shall we say, an eggcess of egg puzzles over the years.

Boxes and Booze 11/20/21 Boxes and Booze 11/20/21

Brass Lighthouse

Whenever I am visiting a destination where there is a lighthouse, I find a way to fit that into the journey and see it with my own eyes. So here we are again taking a little tour, or detour, to another.

Boxes and Booze 10/2/21 Boxes and Booze 10/2/21

Apple

The image of an arrow through an apple, or any other manner of small object, is ubiquitous now and can be found everywhere – like here, in this wonderful puzzle box by Japanese master craftsman Akio Kamei.

Boxes and Booze 7/31/21 Boxes and Booze 7/31/21

Donay Apple

Last summer I spent a puzzling “sabbatical” teaching classes at the University of Berkeley. The course didn’t take place in sunny California, however; rather, it was located in the English Midlands county of Leicestershire, where master turner John Berkeley resides.

Boxes and Booze 7/10/21 Boxes and Booze 7/10/21

Hydrant

The Hydrant was Austrian puzzle designer Stephan Baumegger’s sensational entry in the 2018 International Puzzle Design Competition, where it garnered him a top ten vote award.

Boxes and Booze 7/3/21 Boxes and Booze 7/3/21

CORVI 2020

Of course everyone responds to a pandemic in their own way. If you happen to be an Australian dentist with lots of drills and no teeth in sight, you start dreaming about a virus puzzle.

Boxes and Booze 8/8/20 Boxes and Booze 8/8/20

Donay Bottle

“I never see the glass half empty because I drink out the bottle” - Ellen DeGeneres

Boxes and Booze 8/1/20 Boxes and Booze 8/1/20

Puzzle Balls

The “puzzle ball” is certainly one of the oldest known examples of a puzzling object. These ivory spheres were hand carved, with freely moving inner spheres nesting one inside the other.

A spirited journey through the world of collectible artisan puzzles