What's the point of having a logic system if a) it has no uses, and b) you can't have fun with it? Well, trinary logic presents solutions to both those problems in one single item: the logic puzzle. You know, those puzzles where you're given a list of clues and an oddly shaped grid which you fill in with x's and dots until you know who did what where?

      But wait, you say. That's Boolean logic. You have two options: X for false, dot for true, right? Wrong! When you first see the grid, which of your two options is selected? Neither! You don't know with certainty whether any given square should contain an X or a dot. So we have a third option. Mathematicians call this the "I haven't got a clue so I'm gonna leave it blank for now" option. And it's this option that makes this entire web page worthwhile. (Ok, we could have just given you the puzzle and you never would have noticed this. But then we wouldn't look nearly so clever for pointing it out to you.)

      But enough with the theory. Let's get on with the fun!

      One last thing before you play: We strongly recommend you set your screen resolution to 800x600 or higher, and use your browser's options of hiding the navigation bars. Otherwise, the puzzle will not fit on the screen and will cause the browser to scroll up and down in a rather untimely manner. Furthermore, the logic puzzles rely on the use of JavaScript, so you must have a browser that supports JavaScript. If you don't have one, get Netscape.

      To play: click once in a box to change it to an X, twice to change it to a dot, a third time to make it blank again. (If you get the hourglass, just move the mouse around.)

      The Demise of the Scottish Kings Puzzle

      Clean out the Freezer Night Puzzle

      Special thanks to Kim and Wendy Noyes for these great puzzles.

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      Uses of Trinary | Table of Contents | ThinkQuest