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History
Black Box is an abstract board game which simulates shooting rays into a black box to deduce the locations of "atoms" hidden inside.
It was created by Eric Solomon. The board game was published by Waddingtons from the mid-1970s and by Parker Brothers in the late 1970s.
Black Box was inspired by the work of Godfrey Hounsfield who was awarded the 1979 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his invention of the CAT scanner.
Goal
Black Box is played on a two-dimensional grid. The object of the game is to discover the location of "atoms",
hidden within the grid, by the use of the minimum number of probes ("rays").
Atoms interact with rays in three ways.
Hit
A direct impact on an atom by a ray is a "hit".
Thus, ray 1 fired into the box configuration at left strikes an atom directly, generating a "hit", designated by an "H".
A ray which hits an atom does not emerge from the box.
Deflection
The interaction resulting from a ray which does not actually hit an atom,
but which passes directly to one side of the ball is called a "deflection".
The angle of deflection for this ray/atom interaction is 90 degrees.
Reflection
The final type of interaction of a ray with an atom is a "reflection", designated by an "R".
This occurs in two circumstances.
If an atom is at the edge of the grid, any ray which is aimed into the grid directly beside it causes a reflection.
Double deflection
The other circumstance leading to a reflection is when two deflections cancel out.
Miss
There are also misses. Ray may interacts with no atoms in the grid.
Detour
Rays that don't result in hits or reflections are called "detours".
These may be single or multiple deflections, or misses.
A detour has an entry and an exit location, while hits and reflections only have an entry location for a hit,
and a single entry/exit location for a reflection.
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