Anything from poetry, to classroom themes, to teaching thoughts and beyond. Oh, and speaking of swans...
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Stumped
I can't figure out how THIS works... give it a try. It is a bit uncanny. Thanks to Ashley for sending me into "try-again" mode for the last ten minutes.
Any ideas on the programming/ theory behind this re-gifting puzzle?
Celeste, heres' an explanation: let's say your number is ab, where a and b are digits. so, numerically, it's (a*10)+b. subtract a and b. OK, now it's (a*9). So, no matter what number you started with, now you have 9, 18, 27, 36, 45, 54, 63, 72, or 81. The grid shown is arranged in such a way as to make noticing this hard, but all those #s have the same value each time, miraculously the same thing Robin predicts (or, really, postdicts). It changes each time to keep the illusion of freshness. The other values in the grid are just filler, you can't obtain them while playing by their rules. Follow? So if Jenny had followed directions, it should have worked every time.
I finally did follow the instructions correctly...the first time I was thoroughly distracted by Isaac's flinging himself around in my lap and must have looked at the wrong numbers. Haha. It makes sense now. Celeste, are you feeling better? Jenny
That was very sneaky...the way they changed the gifts each time for the boxes labeled 9, 18...so that they were all the same gift within a round but with each renewed round the uniform item changed.
Fun! Thanks for the explanation, Dave. I read it before playing, and it made me feel smart.
That is funny, but I tried it about 5 times and it only guessed right one of those. How did your interview for EFY go?
ReplyDeleteJenny
Celeste, heres' an explanation: let's say your number is ab, where a and b are digits. so, numerically, it's (a*10)+b. subtract a and b. OK, now it's (a*9). So, no matter what number you started with, now you have 9, 18, 27, 36, 45, 54, 63, 72, or 81. The grid shown is arranged in such a way as to make noticing this hard, but all those #s have the same value each time, miraculously the same thing Robin predicts (or, really, postdicts). It changes each time to keep the illusion of freshness. The other values in the grid are just filler, you can't obtain them while playing by their rules. Follow? So if Jenny had followed directions, it should have worked every time.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Dave. I knew you could do it. This was fun, Celeste!
ReplyDeleteI finally did follow the instructions correctly...the first time I was thoroughly distracted by Isaac's flinging himself around in my lap and must have looked at the wrong numbers. Haha. It makes sense now. Celeste, are you feeling better?
ReplyDeleteJenny
That was very sneaky...the way they changed the gifts each time for the boxes labeled 9, 18...so that they were all the same gift within a round but with each renewed round the uniform item changed.
ReplyDeleteFun! Thanks for the explanation, Dave. I read it before playing, and it made me feel smart.