If you fancy yourself as a Tetris whizz, try your hand at this puzzle set by St John’s Maths Tutor Dr David Seifert…

One of the most successful video games of all time is Tetris. There are seven different Tetris pieces: the long piece, the square, the T-piece, two L-pieces and two Z-pieces. Each piece is made up of four square blocks, and in fact the name of the game comes from the Greek prefix tetra meaning ‘four’.

Suppose you are given exactly one of each of the seven different Tetris pieces. Is it possible to arrange them in such a way that they form a 4 × 7 rectangle?

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Further reading

If you’re interested in Tetris, here are a few links to some research about using Tetris as a form of therapy to treat post-traumatic stress symptoms:

• A picture is worth a thousand words
• Tetris used to prevent post-traumatic stress symptoms
• Preventing intrusive memories after trauma via a brief intervention involving Tetris computer game play in the emergency department
• Key steps in developing a cognitive vaccine against traumatic flashbacks
• Emily Holmes’ research group