Crosswords3 mins ago
Listener 4125 Elementary Number Theory by Oyler
76 Answers
Elementary, indeed. An easily guessed theme as far as resolving the ambiguities is concerned, leading to a very quick grid fill. The most interesting thing about it was checking the statements against the unclued entries to get to the thematic word. This must have been a lot of work to create, but the nature of the solution was too obvious, I think.
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For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.No, I am not in the Friday club. As if. This is just to record how inconvenient this is. I always pass the numericals on to mathematician husband, but it ought to be next weekend (last in Feb). This would have suited me fine as next weekend we are going to London to visit no. 1 daughter, seeing friends before and after, going to Madame Butterfly at the Albert Hall - in short, get a life not a crossword. Now, this weekend I have plenty of time and no Listener, but next weekend vice versa.
Aldanna - I'm sure I saw somewhere that the number puzzles have all been brought forward by a week, so second to last Saturday in each of Feb / May / Aug / Nov. I believe this was to avoid as far as possible having numbers coincide with Bank Holiday weekends which tended to be the case May and August. Managed to forget that somewhere along the way, so it caught me by surprise too.
I am still not a great fan of the numerical puzzles but it makes a change to exercise a different part of the brain once every three months. I managed to get an 'A' in my A Level maths back in the mists of time but I remember my teacher saying this was due to perspiration rather than inspiration and this was the approach I applied to this puzzle, with a rather large Excel spreadsheet helping to work out the various possibilities. It did become easier once the property of the grid became clear.
Normally take one look at the mathematical puzzles and decide it is not worth the effort. However this one is much more accessible, and once you get going the grid completion accelerates significantly.
Now need to go through the final step of determining the properties of the unclued entries. Wish my calculator allowed for more digits.
Now need to go through the final step of determining the properties of the unclued entries. Wish my calculator allowed for more digits.
For anyone struggling to work out N, then this link will help. The larger the number the longer it takes to give the result but it does get there.
http://internetfamily...factorscalculator.htm
http://internetfamily...factorscalculator.htm
Thanks for the puzzle Oyler and sorry that the theme has been given away so quickly here. A shame as this was a well constructed puzzle which offered a lot to those less keen on the numericals. I am always interested to hear how these were constructed so if you are either planning a setters blog or would be prepared to share some solution notes in due course once the solution is published that would be much appreciated. (My email is [email protected]).
1 is not considered prime for reasons spelled out here:
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PrimeNumber.html
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PrimeNumber.html
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