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World Community Grid Forums
Category: Community
Forum: Chat Room
Thread: Weekend Puzzles |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 285
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alanb1951
Veteran Cruncher Joined: Jan 20, 2006 Post Count: 952 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Adri,
Sorry for not responding earlier... I realized that nothing based on the first equation was going to yield a value that didn't end in 4, 5, 9 or 0, and that killed off any matches I got between the other two. I had already tried some variants with concatenation of the 4 and the 096 (for 4096) in the last equation but... I was about to try other uses of concatenation as an operator (nasty, that) when the components I needed to repair a broken system turned up, and by the time I'd dealt with the hardware side of that you'd already published the answer :-) Ah, well - it was certainly interesting, but I'll never know if I would have hit the right combination if not interrupted. Once again, thanks for a challenging puzzle! Cheers - Al. |
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adriverhoef
Master Cruncher The Netherlands Joined: Apr 3, 2009 Post Count: 2155 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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In the year 2525… minus 500 …
----------------------------------------I was working on a whole different premise than Adri. I was going for the answer being 20 on both sides of the equation. I came up with a whole different series of solutions. A, {Ⅳ}{Ⅴ}{Ⅳ}{Ⅵ} + 1 = {Ⅳ}{Ⅴ}{Ⅴ}{Ⅴ} (4 + 5 + 4 + 6) +1 = 4 (5X5X5) 19+1 = 4 (125^1/3) 20 = 20 Aren't you conjuring 1/3 out of thin air now, Sgt.Joe  B. {10}{3}{2}{10} + 1 = {3}{2}{5}{5}{3}{2} [(10-3) +2 +10] +1 = 3(2)(5) - 5 - 3 – 2 (7 + 2 + 10) + 1 = 30 – 5 – 3 – 2 19+1 = 20 20 = 20 Nice one, although 3 + 2 + 5 + 5 + 3 + 2 seems easier.  C. {4 096 576}{½} + 1 = {4 100 625}{½} I thought this one would be the easiest, being a mathematician.  At primary school I was taught that you could use a space between each triplet of digits when writing large numbers: "1 000 000" is one million.Adri [Edit 1 times, last edit by adriverhoef at Jan 17, 2025 12:50:03 PM] |
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Sgt.Joe
Ace Cruncher USA Joined: Jul 4, 2006 Post Count: 7659 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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I was working on a whole different premise than Adri. I was going for the answer being 20 on both sides of the equation. I came up with a whole different series of solutions. A, {Ⅳ}{Ⅴ}{Ⅳ}{Ⅵ} + 1 = {Ⅳ}{Ⅴ}{Ⅴ}{Ⅴ} (4 + 5 + 4 + 6) +1 = 4 (5X5X5) 19+1 = 4 (125^1/3) 20 = 20 Aren't you conjuring 1/3 out of thin air now, Sgt.Joe confused In your original post you stated "Raising to a power is also permitted." Raising a number to the 1/3 power is the same as taking the cube root so I assumed it was a legitimate operation. As an alternative I could gave done the multiplication as (5)(5^0)(5^0) which would also equal 5. Cheers
Sgt. Joe
----------------------------------------*Minnesota Crunchers* [Edit 1 times, last edit by Sgt.Joe at Jan 17, 2025 1:52:49 PM] |
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adriverhoef
Master Cruncher The Netherlands Joined: Apr 3, 2009 Post Count: 2155 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Aha, so, as this was not intended when I put the puzzle together, I should have formulated my text more carefully, like "Raising to a power is also permitted using the given element numbers."
In this way, with a puzzle like {64}{½}, you would only be allowed to use the number ½ when you try to raise to a power. Or can you find another easy loophole, Sgt.Joe? Adri |
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Sgt.Joe
Ace Cruncher USA Joined: Jul 4, 2006 Post Count: 7659 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Aha, so, as this was not intended when I put the puzzle together, I should have formulated my text more carefully, like "Raising to a power is also permitted using the given element numbers." In this way, with a puzzle like {64}{½}, you would only be allowed to use the number ½ when you try to raise to a power. Or can you find another easy loophole, Sgt.Joe? Adri No more loopholes of which I am aware, but I was not really looking for loopholes. I was trying to follow the parameters given. I did give quite a bit of thought to the leading zero on "096" and thought about combining the "4" with it as it made such a nice power of 2 - (2^12). The 576 did jump out almost immediately as being 24^2 and the 625 likewise as 25^2. With looking just at those 2 numbers with the bases being only one number apart should have given me a clue.However, the subtlety of your puzzles is pretty impressive. Cheers
Sgt. Joe
*Minnesota Crunchers* |
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adriverhoef
Master Cruncher The Netherlands Joined: Apr 3, 2009 Post Count: 2155 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Dear puzzle friends,
Here is another short puzzle that I threw together: Given these two mathematical expressions: HARDWORK > KNOWLEDGE HARDWORK < ATTITUDE If ATTITUDE is 100%, how much is KNOWLEDGE? Adri PS Even if you don't understand '>' and '<' you should be able to solve this puzzle using the two rewritten mathematical expressions: HARDWORK is more than KNOWLEDGE HARDWORK is less than ATTITUDE |
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Bryn Mawr
Senior Cruncher Joined: Dec 26, 2018 Post Count: 344 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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I have the answer but don’t know how the hide it in a spoiler tag.
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Sgt.Joe
Ace Cruncher USA Joined: Jul 4, 2006 Post Count: 7659 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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I also have the answer, but like Bryn Mawr I don't know how to hide it so I don't spoil it for others.
----------------------------------------I think this is the easiest puzzle you have posted in a long time. Maybe one little hint: Knowledge is abundant. Cheers
Sgt. Joe
----------------------------------------*Minnesota Crunchers* [Edit 1 times, last edit by Sgt.Joe at Feb 1, 2025 10:13:42 PM] |
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alanb1951
Veteran Cruncher Joined: Jan 20, 2006 Post Count: 952 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Adri, did you know WCG was about to have problems??? :-)
I hadn't accessed WCG since way before this outage started so it was nice to have a puzzle to work on when all else is quiet at WCG, even if it didn't take as long to solve as your usual mind-benders! Thanks for the excuse to take a break from what I was doing; I'd hit a particularly knotty coding problem and doing something else also helped solve that puzzle! Cheers - Al. |
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adriverhoef
Master Cruncher The Netherlands Joined: Apr 3, 2009 Post Count: 2155 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Sgt. Joe wrote:
Knowledge is abundant I can see a nice pattern (some mirror effect) in the first six letters of 'abundant':AB U N DA You see (UC)? However, how can your hint be a hint ? Knowledge is abundant. Wisdom is rare. Knowledge is abundant. Wisdom is scarce. Adri |
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