CoM | The Joy of Sharing Interesting Phenomena Through Puzzle Design

Friday, August 21, 2026
 – Live Presentation with
Hirokazu Iwasawa (aka Iwahiro) –

Session at 12 Noon Atlanta time
(check your time here)

Please join us starting 10 minutes before this session using the following button.

For published CoM presentations please visit the G4G YouTube channel

After this virtual CoM presentation on Zoom, we will meet for an informal social session in a different Zoom space where we can all see each other (see the blue button below).  That Zoom meeting will start around 1pm ET.

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The Joy of Sharing Interesting Phenomena Through Puzzle Designs

Some of the material in this talk was originally prepared for a children’s TV program in Japan about the work of a puzzle designer.

In this talk, I would like to share some of those demonstrations with the G4G community. Along the way, I’ll introduce some of the puzzles inspired by the same underlying phenomena, show how a small change can make a big difference in a puzzle, and share a few stories behind the designs. Some of the props are so simple that you can easily make them yourself.

I hope you’ll enjoy exploring these interesting phenomena with me—and perhaps feel like sharing some of them with others.

Hirokazu Iwasawa (aka Iwahiro) is an internationally recognized puzzle designer and works in actuarial science. He has written more than twenty books in Japanese covering a wide range of subjects, including puzzles, mathematics, probability, statistics, actuarial science, and data science. As a puzzle designer, he has received multiple awards in the International Puzzle Design Competition. He has translated works by Martin Gardner into Japanese. He enjoys noticing interesting phenomena and finding enjoyable ways to share them with others.

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