PUZZLE TECHNIQUES

THERMOMETER PUZZLES

First learn our tips to understand these puzzles. If you have mastered our methods, then you can try our online Thermometer puzzles.

Number 0 or number 10

This is the simplest technique. For 10x10 puzzles, the number 0 means that all squares are empty and the number 10 means that all squares must be filled.

NUMBER SMALLER THAN THERMOMETER LENGTH

We explain this technique on the basis of an example. Below you can see a piece from a thermometer puzzle. The number in the row is 5 and there is a thermometer that is 7 squares long.

In our example, the thermometer is 2 cells longer than the number. We can therefore cross the last 2 cells with absolute certainty. You cannot fill these cells with mercury.

NUMBER BIGGER THAN THE SUM OF THERMOMETERS

For this solving technique we use the same example as in the previous tip. Now we focus our attention on the cells that we can fill with absolute certainty.

The number is 5 and there are 4 thermometers (= 3 vertical and 1 horizontal). If we suppose that the 3 cells that are part of a vertical thermometer are filled, then we still may fill 2 cells of the horizontal thermometer.

COMBINE ROWS OR COLUMNS

Search for 2 rows or 2 columns with a big difference between the two numbers in the border. In our example we have a row with number 6 and a row with number 1.

If we apply the 2nd technique and assume that all the vertical thermometers are filled, then we know know about the horizontal thermometer.

If we look at cell 1 and the last cell, than we notice that they continue in the row below. That row has number 1, so cell 1 and cell 10 cannot be filles both.

As a result, only 5 of the 6 vertical thermometers can be filled and we can with certainty colorize the first cell of the horizontal thermometer.

THERMOMETERS ZIJN STEEDS GEVULD VANAF DE CIRKEL

If you can fill a non-circle cell of a thermometer with certainty, then you can fill all the cells in the direction of the circle-cell including the circle-cell of that thermometer.

View the example below. We have applied the 1st technique to columns 7 and 10. Because of this technique there are 2 cells in row 5 that are empty and we can fill the 8 others.

If we now look at cells 8 and 9 of row 5, then we see that these thermometers are already filled. So we may fill them also in row 6.