The Icosian Game An original copy of Sir William Rowan
Hamilton's famous "Icosian Game". There are only three other
known examples of this puzzle. Sir William Rowan Hamilton, who
was Astronomer Royal of Ireland, invented the puzzle in 1857. He
sold the rights to Jaques for £25. Hamilton gave his name to the
mathematical field of "Hamiltonian Circuits". The pieces are
conical bone or ivory plugs. The puzzle museum only has a
photocopy copy of the original rules, which give 15 example
puzzles. Hamilton intended that one person should pose the
puzzle and a second person solve it. The until recently, only
information we had on "The Travellers Dodecahedron" was its
description in a chapter on Hamilton's Game in volume 2 of
Édouard Lucas' "Récréations Mathématiques" and another mention
in the 3rd edition of Ahrens' German work on Recreational
Mathematics. We knew of no actual examples of the puzzle; so we
were very fortunate to find this example complete, and in almost
new condition. The "Travellers Dodecahedron" p