Tangled Cords
Read the puzzle
Lanterns, left to right: circle, star, diamond, square; switches A to D below, left to right. Cords cross over and under, never joining. From the top: circle's cord runs down the left edge, then diagonally down-right through the centre. Star's and diamond's cross just below the lanterns; star's then reaches the right edge at mid-height, diamond's the left edge at mid-height. Square's runs down the right edge, then diagonally down-left through the centre. From the bottom: A's cord rises up-right through the centre, B's to a loop at the left edge, C's to a loop at the right edge, D's up-left through the centre. Which switch lights the star lantern?
Which switch lights the star lantern?
SWITCH C
Follow cord C over and under: it ends at the star.
How to solve it
Trace only the star cord and ignore the rest; an over-and-under crossing never joins two cords.
The star cord leaves the second lantern heading down and to the right. It crosses the diamond cord near the top centre, keeps sloping right past the square cord, then swings out into the wide loop on the right edge. From the bottom of that loop it bends back inward and finishes at switch C.
It helps to check the others too: the square cord runs diagonally all the way to A, the diamond cord loops on the left and ends at B, and the circle cord crosses the whole panel to D. Each switch gets exactly one cord, so the answer holds.
The usual wrong answer is B, the switch directly below the star, picked by assuming cords drop straight down. The crossings in the middle pull the eye onto the wrong strand.
