A break from puzzles. Not!
Leave comments here: 54 comment(s)
Looks like we will have a break from puzzles. BUT! Looking at the source code there is a puzzle!
1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 18, 19, 23, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31, 33, 34, 38, 40, 42, 43, 45
Blue Numbers:
4, 5, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 17, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 30, 32, 35, 36, 37, 39, 41, 44, 46, 47, 48
Test your friends! Go to: http://solvepuzzles.googlepages.com
Play Old Puzzles! Go to: http://solvepuzzles.googlepages.com/puzzle OR The Official Page
Good job finding the hidden message and this message too!Better Visual:
Here's your bonus hidden puzzle:
I have a card in my pocket with the numbers from 1 through 48 written
on it. Some of the numbers are red, some are blue. They are arranged
in a grid like this:
14 25 8 ( 1) 4 5
41 ( 6) 35 30 (27) (26)
(29) (18) 47 (42) 39 (38)
21 32 ( 3) 10 ( 7) 12
(34) (23) (40) (45) 48 (43)
( 2) 37 20 (13) 16 17
( 9) 44 (15) 22 (19) 24
46 (11) (28) (33) 36 (31)
The numbers in parentheses are red.
What is this card used for?
(This puzzle is based on an actual card I got from Will Strijbos.)
1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 18, 19, 23, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31, 33, 34, 38, 40, 42, 43, 45
Blue Numbers:
4, 5, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 17, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 30, 32, 35, 36, 37, 39, 41, 44, 46, 47, 48
Test your friends! Go to: http://solvepuzzles.googlepages.com
Play Old Puzzles! Go to: http://solvepuzzles.googlepages.com/puzzle OR The Official Page
By Puzzle Solver Wannabe at 7:08 PM
54 Comments:
Well, almost. There's a hidden message.
Yes, not merely a hidden message, but a hidden puzzle as well.
**********************************
Good job finding the hidden message and this message too!
Here's your bonus hidden puzzle:
I have a card in my pocket with the numbers from 1 through 48 written on it. Some of the numbers are red, some are blue. They are arranged in a grid like this:
14 25 8 ( 1) 4 5
41 ( 6) 35 30 (27) (26)
(29) (18) 47 (42) 39 (38)
21 32 ( 3) 10 ( 7) 12
(34) (23) (40) (45) 48 (43)
( 2) 37 20 (13) 16 17
( 9) 44 (15) 22 (19) 24
46 (11) (28) (33) 36 (31)
The numbers in parentheses are red.
What is this card used for?
(This puzzle is based on an actual card I got from Will Strijbos.)
I have no idea how to solve this puzzle.
I have to agree - there's no evident way to come to a solution for the use of the card. I suspect that it's used analog "random" sampling of boxed samples or electronics or such, but there's not enough information to search it out.
There is a mathematical relationship between some of the columns.
I think its crap. I mean come on. I can give anyone a set of numbers and with time, figure out a mathematical relationship between them.
Solve this puzzle
01 32 (21) 45
12 (11) 41 47
02 50 15 (32)
35 (32) 37 40
What is this card used for?
How the hell do I know.
Each row has to alternate between even and odd, but this is not true for columns.
Additionally, 6 columns * 8 rows is 48, so this could be some kind of multiplication table with modulos 48. Is analytical geometry off-limits for a puzzle?
And what is with the parentheses and the red vs. blue? In AutoCAD red is often used for cut volumes and blue for fill volumes. Parentheses are often used to denote negative numbers. Nope. No help there.
Unless I'm misinterpreting it, I think the parentheses just indicate which numbers are red, and don't appear on the actual card...
I do not think we will solve this.
Here are the four bits of info I know of so far:
There are 24 reds and 24 blues.
No 2x2 region is all one color.
Each row alternates even and odd numbers.
Each column adds up to 196.
Beyond this, I've got nothin'.
how did you find this puzzle?! i've been going crazy staring at the source code. i think it's got something to do with the nbsp;'s but other than that i got nothing
Actually, Tom, the code is in the module itself. Each module is in its own frame, and you had to look at the frame source.
Here's the URL for the frame source of the previous puzzle. If you look at the code there, you'll easily see the puzzle:
http://15.gmodules.com/ig/ifr?
url=http://weihwa.feedback.
googlepages.com/20060804-
retrospective.xml
(I've broken the URL over several lines, to show up in the comments section.)
This tiny URL also goes there directly:
http://tinyurl.com/ozk4y
I find it interesting that he specifically notes that he got the puzzle from Will Strijbos. I am sure this is just giving credit where credit is due but it may also be a point in the right direction to think like Will. From googling his name I come up with a lot of "physical"/hands-on-type puzzles that he has created so perhaps it has to do with measurements?
Doesn't this kind of look like a Bingo or Keno card? Bingo would be 5 x 5, and this is 6 x 6, so I'm leaning towards Keno.
Keno has 80 numbers, and also this is 6 x 8, not 6 x 6.
so nobody knows what this puzzle is about?
There are some interesting patterns if you take the difference of each number from the one to its right.:
11 -17 -7 3 1 9
13 -19 -5 -3 -1 15
-11 -19 -5 -3 -1 -9
11 19 7 -3 5 9
-11 17 5 3 -5 -9
-13 -17 -7 3 1 -15
-13 19 7 -3 5 -15
13 17 5 3 -5 15
I still haven't figure out what this means.
Since when is the difference between 41 and 6 = 13? *scratches head*
If you wrap the numbers around at 48 (mod 48), the difference is 13. 41+13=54. 54%48=6.
Actually, if you pick any two columns in the puzzle and compute the differences in this way, you will see the same pattern. There are always two numbers which appear 4 times each. Two of the occurances will be negative, and two will be positive.
and its all prime numbers.
I have taken a completely different approach to this puzzle - with no success. I pasted all of these numbers into Excel and shaded the background of each cell with the corresponding color for that number. I had hoped a visible pattern might emerge within the grid. I then tried rearranging the numbers in the grid, placing 1 in cell A1, 2 in cell B1, etc. This did not seem to yield anything too interesting, but I thought I might share in case someone smarter thinks this might be an effective approach to this puzzle and can take it a step further.
9 and 15 are not prime numbers
Nor is 1 (it's neither prime nor composite).
not really a puzzle if nobody can solve it. there is just not enough leads to start.
Ok, looking at the grid and trying to reverse engineer a puzzle, so there's almost a pattern when you associate the difference between the neighboring cell (in the same row) with the next cell. The "distance" between any two side-by-side cells is always one of two "prime" numbers (technically non-composite positive integers as I am including 1).
"Distance" is defined as the smallest distance between the two numbers allowing a wrapping of the numbers (e.g. counting goes ... 46, 47, 48, 1). The wrapping at 48 makes sense as there are only 48 integers in the problem, and each is used once. The distance is denoted as negative when you have to count backwards. For example the distance between 2 & 7 is 5 (starting at 2 you count forward 5 numbers to get to 7) and the distance between 2 and 35 is -13 (as starting at 2 you count backwards 13 numbers (1 48 47 46 45 44 43 42 41 40 39 38 37)).
Looking the "distances" between each row when the first cell is blue and the second is blue we have:
row 1 - row 2: 11
row 2 - row 3: -17
row 3 - row 4: 5
row 4 - row 5: N/A
row 5 - row 6: 1
and red-red is exactly the negative of blue-blue:
row 1 - row 2: -11
row 2 - row 3: 17
row 3 - row 4: -5
row 4 - row 5: N/A
row 5 - row 6: -1
and blue to red (first one blue) is:
row 1 - row 2: 13
row 2 - row 3: 19
row 3 - row 4: -7 (with mistake in row 3 of -5 instead of -7)
row 4 - row 5: -3
row 5 - row 6: -5 (with mistake in row 3 of -1 instead of -5)
and red to blue (first one red) is exact opposite:
row 1 - row 2: -13
row 2 - row 3: -19
row 3 - row 4: 7
row 4 - row 5: 3 (with mistake in row 3 of -3 instead of 3)
row 5 - row 6: 5
Note: I had three mistakes that didn't fit my relatively simple pattern of colors tell difference between adjacent squares of what prime number distance there will be between them. However if you merely swap three colors at the end of row three (42 to blue, 39 to red and 38 to blue) everything fits together. Maybe Wei-Hwa made a mistake? But this change doesn't allow
I think this coupled with the sums of all columns being 196 could make this an interesting puzzle.
Sorry i meant to say this change doesn't allow for exactly 24 reds & blues. But accidentally deleted the text.
OK, taking this a little further, I've noticed perhaps a more interesting pattern. It's hard for me to explain but I'll try...
Take any 2 number combination from any row, noting the colors of each number. Then compare to another row where the same colors occur in the same columns. The difference between the 2 numbers is always the same.
For example:
R1C1(Blue)=14
R1C5(Blue)=4
Difference=10
R6C1(Blue)=46
R6C5(Blue)=36
Difference=10
One more:
R4C3(Red)=3
R4C5(Red)=7
Difference=-4
R7C3(Red)=15
R7C5(Red)=19
Difference=-4
This seems to hold true in all cases, except the same rule breakers mentioned by jledoux.
Maybe the point of this puzzle is to find the rule breakers. 42 should be blue and 39 should be red. But 38 should not change and it should remain red.
It seems, however, that this "card" has some sort of purpose. Maybe not an every-day purpose, but still something that people would use for some task or decision or something. The number patterns are nice and the fact that they hold for everything except a few specific examples is quite interesting, but they unfortunately do not point to a "use" as asked for by the puzzle.
Wei-Hwa, if you're reading this, we are throwing ourselves at your mercy. Please post the answer!
Or at least a hint or something. Yeah, a hint. I always love a good puzzle, but this one seems like it might be a bit short on the clues. Have we lost focus on something important? Maybe we were close before and we've since lost sight of something? Just a pointer in the right direction would be great.
I think maybe we all need to send him a ton of e-mails with the subject line: "Wei-Hwa, you never told us what the card is for!"
Actually, maybe it's a meta-meta-puzzle. Maybe Will Strijbos gave him the card and never told Wei-Hwa what the purpose was.
Maybe. He couldnt solve it so he gave it to us to solve it.
I like that idea. Maybe Will Strjbos gave Wei Hwa the puzzle, and he didn't solve it (or thought it was too general). So as a hidden puzzle, he decided to slightly change it (e.g., he changed 42 to red, 39 to blue) and see if people could figure out what the original puzzle was (as a sort of test on whether the original puzzle was unique enough to exist as a standalone puzzle).
I stand corrected about changing three numbers though.
There was something mentioned about a birthday. This puzzle was on a card. Could it be a birthday card?
If we don't get the answer from him this week, I'm going to go crazy.
I doubt he will release the answer. So go ahead, go crazy...
Try doing a search for [ "6 7 12 13" "3 6 7 10" "14 15 24" ].
I've seen that trick with the cards with numbers on it. It works because it garrisons the numbers between 1-31 in a very particular way. In fact, if you take card A to be the units place, card B to be the twos place, card C to be the fours place, card D to be the eights place and card E to be the sixteens place, you've got yourself a binary-number. With a little practice, anyone familiar with binary numbers would be able to decode any list of which cards a number is on down to the number itself.
Unfortunately, our cards in this puzzle number from 1 to 48. I'm not sure I see a pattern to which numbers are red or blue, yet.
Maybe its something to do with binary, calendars, and birthdays...
Check this out.
http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/56020.html
Well the puzzle was realized on his birthday, 09/04/2006.
Oops, that 8/4/2006
Could this have something to do with Hamming codes or checksums? If so, it's way too difficult for me.
Quote: "Try doing a search for [ "6 7 12 13" "3 6 7 10" "14 15 24" ]."
So is the link doing it in binary? or some other base?
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I haven't tried to figure this out in a little while, and I thought I'd give it another shot. My guess is that the card is used to do a trick like the one referenced on the "mathforum" site which was mentioned earlier. Something along the lines of 1) pick a number 2) follow a few steps 3) it always leads to the same number no matter where you start. Either that or you answer a couple questions regarding your number on the card and the questioner can get your number. Now I just need to come up with such a system (if that's part of the puzzle).
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