MATH STINGER #17 
by Dr. Joel C. Fowler 
Assistant Professor of Mathematics

For new problems look again at a chessboard. Suppose a chess piece can move only one square horizontally 
or vertically at a time, i.e. a king that cannot move diagonally. It is not too difficult to see how this king could 
move about the board in such a way that every square is covered exactly once and return to the square on 
which he started. Suppose now that two squares at opposite ends of the same diagonal are deleted from the 
board. Is it possible now for the king to visit every square and return to his starting point? If so, give the path. 
If not, explain why not. Many variations of this puzzle are possible. Could this be done on a 5x7 board 
(no deleted squares)? On a 7x6 board? On a 13x17 board? In general, for what values of m and n is it 
possible on an mxn board (and why)?

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