I nearly punched out my monitor when I saw the "solution".
By that metric I count my first solution of "Cut the image up into a straight line and connect the dots." as valid.
EDIT: I agree about state of mind, the reason I would say nobody could "solve" that problem was their mental model of the parameters of the problem wildly diverged from the authors.
By that metric I count my first solution of "Cut the image up into a straight line and connect the dots." as valid.
EDIT: I agree about state of mind, the reason I would say nobody could "solve" that problem was their mental model of the parameters of the problem wildly diverged from the authors.