Franklin’s Key is a metal brain teaser from Professor Puzzle’s Great Minds collection, dedicated to Benjamin Franklin. It consists of two interlocked metal pieces: the challenge is to separate them and then reassemble the puzzle. The name refers to Franklin’s most famous experiment, flying a kite in the middle of a storm to show that lightning is electricity.

• BrandProfessor Puzzle
• CollectionGreat Minds
• TypeDisentanglement puzzle
• MaterialMetal
• Pieces2

The Great Minds collection

Great Minds is a Professor Puzzle collection that links each brain teaser to a historical figure; each box includes a short biography of the person and explains how they relate to the puzzle. The display it comes from brings together six models from the collection, three in metal and three in wood, dedicated to Benjamin Franklin, Galileo, William the Conqueror, Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton and William Shakespeare. The pieces have an aged finish that suits the historical theme.

How it works

It is a disentanglement puzzle: there are no catches or hidden mechanisms, just two linked pieces that only come apart by following the right path. Having just two pieces does not make it a formality: you usually need to look carefully at how the shapes cross before finding the way out, and reassembling it afterwards is a second challenge.

Professor Puzzle describes it as a challenging brain teaser, without giving it a numerical level.