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© Copyright 1999, Jim Loy
On the left, we have a typical jigsaw puzzle piece, in
blue. It may be oriented in four different ways. We look at the picture on the
piece, hoping to find a person or a shadow or a flower, so that we can rotate
it to the proper orientation. But, this one is sky, with no obvious clues.
But, normally, we can eliminate two of the possible orientations, just by examining the back of the piece. There is normally a kind of pattern, of wood grains or as the result of manufacture of the card board, which runs horizontally, on this raw cardboard. It may be visible on the front too, when the piece is held up to the light. Of the four orientations (the four gray pieces above left), we can eliminate the bottom two. The grain runs the wrong direction for them.
Comment: Some people call these puzzles "jigsaws." Of course, a jigsaw is a saw, not a puzzle. In fact, they use a jigsaw (a very high-quality saw, it would seem), to cut these puzzles. The preferred name for these puzzles is "jigsaw puzzles."