Using Spreadsheets for Solving Logic Puzzles

The consequence relation and perfect usage of derivation is a necessary knowledge for layers, economists, engineers and for hundreds of other different professionals. Students in the low and mid level education system are able to solve simple logical puzzles without any special training, but some of the puzzles in Smullyan’s books present a challenge even for university students. Some of the logic and artificial intelligence courses contain methods for examining deductions and the students might even use special tools and software to facilitate the process. In this article we would like to show you that the well-known spreadsheet software is a great tool to solve puzzles that can be expressed in sentence (or in zero-order) logic. Many students therefore will be able to solve even complicated puzzles without learning any special soft wares. This can be very helpful for teachers teaching deduction, but it can be also helpful for the teachers teaching spreadsheet software usage, because their students would be able to solve challenging problems by learning to use new functions. The knowledge of these functions could be useful later solving other type of problems, too.