Sunday, October 22, 2017

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Oct 22, 2017): Two Week Challenge: Move Two Numbers

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Oct 22, 2017): Two Week Challenge: Move Two Numbers:
Q: This is a two-week challenge. Write down the equation:
65 – 43 = 21.
You'll notice that this is not correct. 65 minus 43 equals 22, not 21. The object is to move exactly two of the digits to create a correct equation. There is no trick in the puzzle's wording. In the answer, the minus and equal signs do not move.
Keep it up; you still have another week to solve this.

Edit: My hint last week was "I used to be an advocate...". I guess you could say if I'm no longer a proponent, I must be an ex-ponent. :) This week's clue is a hint to raise the numbers up.
A: 65 - 4³ = 1² --> 65 - 64 = 1

75 comments:

  1. Here's my standard reminder... don't post the answer or any hints that could lead directly to the answer (e.g. via a chain of thought, or an internet search) before the deadline of Thursday at 3pm ET. If you know the answer, click the link and submit it to NPR, but don't give it away here.

    You may provide indirect hints to the answer to show you know it, but make sure they don't give the answer away. You can openly discuss your hints and the answer after the Thursday deadline. Thank you.

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  2. Some would say this is a superior puzzle.

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  3. Replies
    1. And be sure to keep the 2 and the 3 full size as you are relocating them. There is no mention of shrinking in the wording of the puzzle.

      Paul McCartney wrote "When I'm Sixty-Four" when he was a quarter of the way there. He's 75 now.
      I didn't know Harry Nilsson wrote "One". Three Dog Night took it to #5 on the Hot 100 in 1969. Harry lived to be 52.

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    2. Paul - I didn't know Nilsson wrote "One", either. Amazing how a lot of TDK songs were kind of springboards for some up and coming artists.

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  4. Wonder what time and date the powers that be at SP will come up with for the winning submission.

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  5. I like that the sequence is 654321

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  6. I think I'm in good shape for this one.

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  7. Doctor: "I'm sorry but you suffer from a terminal illness and have only 10 to live.
    Patient:"What do you mean, 10? 10 what? Months? Weeks?!"
    Doctor:"Nine."

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    1. Bet it cured the patient's hiccups.

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    2. Maybe it was the elves:

      "Modern spelling first recorded 1788; An Old English word for it was ælfsogoða, so called because hiccups were thought to be caused by elves. hiccough 1620s, variant of hiccup (q.v.) by mistaken association with cough. By etymological standards, both have "folk etymologies" although hiccup is the most correct."

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    3. Word Woman is correct. Elves are an invasive nuisance that are the underlying cause of many of our problems. Thankfully, now that we have a strong president who will build a wall along the border and continue working to limit immigration, we should be able to get a handle on dealing with these pests. How it is that Santa is able to work with these creeps is beyond my understanding.

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    5. Nothing more need be said on the matter; I rest my case.

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    6. Curious what happened with your previous email, I saw a lot of blank space below your one line. Were you celebrating many happy returns?

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    7. eco:
      I wish there was an audio tape of my "celebrating" that occurrence. Had there been, you would hear sounds not indicative of celebration. I don't know what happened, but I had turn off and reboot my computer in order to fix the problem.

      Now, get a good bottle of Scotch and come on over and we'll celebrate my next birthday, which, BTW, is not until April.

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    8. I tend towards rye humor, but let me know when there's a rum ball in Seattle. That's whiskey business.

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    9. I don't know about a rum ball here, but I did purchase a bottle of dark rum yesterday.

      As to rye humor. Rye or Bourbon are the main ingredient in a Manhattan, my favorite cocktail, stirred, not shaken! Rye was the original, followed by Bourbon.

      After I returned from my 3 years in the Army, stationed in Germany, where I learned about life, I introduced my parents to real drinks. Manhattans were appreciated by both immediately and soon that was the only drink my mother would drink. After my father died she drank more than before, and every evening. If the family went out to a new restaurant for a big dinner and tried something new she would not even take a sip. Later I joked that the only difference between our mother and Robert Openheimer was that Oppenheimer did not have a maraschino cherry in his Manhattan Project.

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    10. Enjoyed your Manhattan story, sdb. How different does a drink taste if it is shaken vs. stirred? It doesnt seem to me it would make a huge difference.

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    11. WW - Glad you enjoyed it. I have to explain it to most these days.

      Mixology is the art of making cocktails and how to do it properly. I never attended one of these classes/schools, nor was I ever a bartender, but over fifty years ago I learned they teach that cocktails made with clear liquids are stirred, while those with opaque ingredients, such as cream, need to be shaken in order for them to mix properly. There are exceptions, such as a blended Stinger, which is brandy and colorless crème de menthe, not the green. These two clear liquids will not mix properly if stirred. If you shake a Manhattan, Martini or Negrone, etc. they will become clouded and more diluted than they should be. This will affect both the appearance and taste. The idea of a shaken Martini seems to have come about via Sean Connery in his role as James Bond. It certainly does come across as sexy when he orders his martini "shaken, not stirred. It bruised the alcohol," but this is nonsense as you cannot bruise alcohol, and if you could it would obviously be the other way around. I read once that Victor Hugo always insisted his Manhattans be stirred.

      It should also be noted that for one of the above mentioned classic cocktails to be made properly the container must be filled with a lot of ice cubes and then stirred for at least 30 seconds. I hope that helps.

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    12. Ah, I did not realize shaking drinks meant introducing ice. That does make sense, then. "Bruising" alcohol seems silly. Thanks for the explanation, sdb.

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    13. Just to give julep, no shaking or stirring if you want a "layered drink" like a B-52. I'm not much of a drinker, so I've never had one, but they look kinda cool. SDB is probably too Old Fashioned for such a thing.

      They mention you should use a metal straw for a flaming B-52, so I guess you're supposed to drink one layer at a time, mixing Kahlua, Irish Cream and Grand Marnier doesn't sound good.

      I've got to straighten Mai Tai.

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    14. Why bother to straighten your Mai Tai when you can have Sex on the Beach?

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  8. Why do I keep hearing a Three Dog Night song?

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  9. I won't be able to post at the deadline time tomorrow due to eye exam that will take most of my day. But you all know the easy answer long ago.

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  10. 65 - 4^3 = 1^2

    "Up with People" referred to the superscripts in 4^3 and 1^2.

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  11. 65 – 43 = 21, moving only the 3 and the 2 yields:

    65 – 4³ = 1² → 65 – 64 = 1

    My hint: “Roll the dice” → Dice are cubes; one of the numbers (4) needs to be cubed.

    NORTH, South Carolina is 100 miles southeast of DUE WEST (S.C.)!

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  12. Move the 3 up, and the 2 up and to the right, so the equation becomes "65 = 4 cubed - 1 squared"

    > A variant of the intended answer involves moving one of the digits out of the equation altogether.

    65 = 4 cubed - 1

    > Stupid musical clues: Public Enemy, and Huey Lewis and the News.

    "We Got to Fight the Powers of Three", and "It's Hip to be Squared"?

    (When my son was in third grade, I think, he took a weekend math enrichment class at a nearby college. One week, he was excited to tell us about learning about "bono" numbers. We had no idea what he was talking about, of course, until he explained what they were, and we realized he had mid-heard the term "exponent". So, I was thinking about a U2 musical clue, but no one could have understood.)

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    1. I think you meant 65 - 4 cubed = 1

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    2. Yup. The minus and equals signs don't change.

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  13. I wrote, "... Blaine's is a super, solid gold hint (so was mine)." Super is for the superscript of exponents and solid gold is for 24-karat, or caret which is used to show an exponent if you can't superscript.

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  14. 65-4^3 = 65-64=1=1^2
    move the 3 and the 2

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  16. I agree that the answer WS is looking for is 65-4^3=1^2 (65-64=1).

    But I found an interesting alternative after remembering the challenge that relied on inverting a digital clock.

    Here it is:
    Invert the 6 to a 9, leaving 95-43=21 (wrong);
    Then move the 3 in front of the 5 leaving 93-54=21 (still wrong);
    The move the 2 in front of the 4 leaving 93-52=41 BINGO!!

    If you treat inverting the 6 as not moving it, but merely changing its orientation, then this alternate only moves (i.e., changes the relative positions of) two numbers.

    Comments?

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    1. Creative, SuperZee, though I expect Will will stick to the (super)script. Your solution is hard to explain in a few seconds.

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  17. Just got back home so I can post now. I am surprised at the answers already posted because I came up with something very different.

    365-24=1

    Move the 3 and the 2 and you get 365 days (one year) minus 24 hours equals 1 day.

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    1. Yet, mathematically that equation makes no sense.

      Hope your eyes are ok, sdb.

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    2. I realize it is not a correct math equation, but I solved while still in bed and figured it was a trick question. Also he said nothing about inserting additional symbols, just moving two digits, which I did.

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    3. It's not much better chronologically, but I admire the outside the box thinking. Maybe SDB had a long weekend in Manhattans....

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    4. I'm not sure now if I submitted my solution. I thought I did, but cannot locate the NPR response.

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    5. Though, sdb, I'd argue that using exponents is not adding symbols.

      Manhattan, Kansas? ;-)

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  18. We came up with something creative akin to the digital clock reasoning...65-4=61...we took the three and the two and rotated both 180 degrees to make a six and place it in front of the one and voila! Curious to see if this is accepted; this logic was accepted in the past...why not again!

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  19. An alternative from your token Deplorable: Move the 3 into the 5 position; move the 5 into the 3 position while flipping and rotating the 5 to make a 2. Result is:
    63-42=21

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  20. I had a couple of hints: "I hope [Mendo Jim] gets his power back soon ... my second and third houses in the area are under threat.

    Self-explanatory, I did feel guilty using the tragedy as a clue source. MJ: has life returned to some semblance of normalcy?

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    1. I wish someone would figure out how to post a reasonable looking equation with proper superscripts for the exponents. May be tougher than the puzzle.

      eco: I drove through Redwood Valley yesterday for the first time since the fire.
      The destruction is absolutely appalling, with hundreds of houses and other structures destroyed. I didn't go up Tomki Road where the worst of it is.
      The place I used to live survived, but the homes of about five friends and many more. acquaintances are gone. The randomness of what went and what didn't is hard to understand.
      Phone and power are still being repaired.

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    2. Sorry for your friends and acquaintances, it's going to be rough up there. And that you still have no power too.

      I'll be going up there soon to meet with my clients, passing through the Santa Rosa burn, the traditional gateway to the normally happy, relaxing and beautiful countryside.

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    3. ron posted this yesterday: 65 – 4³ = 1²

      Today, for fun, I dug up something in Windows Accessories called a Character Map, which has all sorts of arcane symbols, and put together my own. Let's see how well it matches: 65 - 4³ = 1²

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    4. I use Character Map occasionally, but I can never seem to locate Charlie Chan. I guess the PC folks had him removed along with Amos and Andy.


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    5. Paul,Thanks for directions on character map. I knew how to type exponents on word using ctrl shift = but does not work with online.

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    6. You can also pin the character map to the task bar.

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    7. When I tried doing that the pins kept scratching my monitor screen.

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    8. Wonder how Blaine typed the equation on here.

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    9. I'm guessing all these characters have maps.

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    11. My android type phone has the first three exponents behind the numbers 1, 2 and 3, eg. 1¹, 2² and 3³.

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  21. Natasha - Your comment on Sunday about "the powers that be" was a nice hint. Was it intentional?

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    1. Hi Lorenzo, Thanks. Glad you caught my hint. I thought my answer was incorrect as no one responded. Also "come up" was a hint. Numbers "come up". I almost submitted the answer where I rotated the 5. Alas, no call!

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  22. 65 – (4^3) = 1^2

    Sorry about missing yesterday, all. I was out on a birthday bash with a group of my former employees.

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  23. My alternative answer (which I did not submit):
    Move the 2 to the right of the 5
    Move the 6 (flipping it in the process) to the left of, and a bit below, the 1.
    Thus:
    65 - 43 = 21
    652 - 43 = 1
    52 - 43 = 9^1
    Two of my riff-offs on Puzzleria! involved equations containing 6,5,4,3,2,1 and 0. ViolinTeddy (and perhaps others) solved both.
    By the way, today's new Puzzleria! is uploaded. Sometime in the near future I plan to publish the "mother of all upside-down digital clock" puzzles.

    LegoWhoMayBeACandidateForInversionTherapy

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  24. My last post didn’t go through for some reason...

    Here’s another answer: Move the 5 to the upper left of the 43 and the 2 to the exponent of the 1. That gives 6 - 5 base 43 = 1^2. You could also do the same trick by moving the 4 to yield 4 base 65 - 3 = 1^2.

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  25. Next week's challenge: This week's challenge sounds easy, but it's a little tricky. Name a well-known nationality. Drop a letter, and the remaining letters in order will name a metal — one of the elements on the periodic table. What is it?

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    1. Here's a list of the metals:

      Actinium
      Aluminium
      Americium
      Barium
      Berkelium
      Beryllium
      Bismuth
      Bohrium
      Cadmium
      Calcium
      Californium
      Cerium
      Cesium
      Chromium
      Cobalt
      Copper
      Curium
      Darmstadtium
      Dubnium
      Dysprosium
      Einsteinium
      Erbium
      Europium
      Fermium
      Francium
      Gadolinium
      Gallium
      Gold
      Hafnium
      Hassium
      Holmium
      Indium
      Iridium
      Iron
      Lanthanum
      Lawrencium
      Lead
      Lithium
      Lutetium
      Magnesium
      Manganese
      Meitnerium
      Mendelevium
      Mercury
      Molybdenum
      Neodymium
      Neptunium
      Nickel
      Niobium
      Nobelium
      Osmium
      Palladium
      Platinum
      Plutonium
      Polonium
      Potassium
      Praseodymium
      Promethium
      Protactinium
      Radium
      Rhenium
      Rhodium
      Roentgenium
      Rubidium
      Ruthenium
      Rutherfordium
      Samarium
      Scandium
      Seaborgium
      Silver
      Sodium
      Strontium
      Tantalum
      Technetium
      Terbium
      Thallium
      Thorium
      Thulium
      Tin
      Titanium
      Tungsten
      Ununbium
      *Ununhexium
      *Ununpentium
      *Ununquadium
      *Ununtrium
      Uranium
      Vanadium
      Ytterbium
      Yttrium
      Zinc
      Zirconium

      Sing along!

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    2. But where's the list of the letters?

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    3. One of the better puzzles I've seen lately.

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  26. Will said this morning that when presented with this puzzle, it took him fifteen minutes to solve it. OK.

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    1. You are referring to the numbers problem, correct? I don't think he gave a time for the nationality/element problem.

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  27. 800 correct answers this week.

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For NPR puzzle posts, don't post the answer or any hints that could lead to the answer before the deadline (usually Thursday at 3pm ET). If you know the answer, submit it to NPR, but don't give it away here.

You may provide indirect hints to the answer to show you know it, but make sure they don't assist with solving. You can openly discuss your hints and the answer after the deadline. Thank you.