Listener 4334 By Brimstone

[Contrarian]

Much easier than it first appears, if you know where to start.

Thanks Brimstone.

[BMACMAC]

I showed my solution to a friend: emailing a spreadsheet is easier than sending lots of scraps of paper! He was quite impressed, but closed with the question: why the strange choice of letters: FVJQRKUEM in the clues, rather than ABCD... ? Is there a hidden theme, as is frequently the case with puzzles of this type? Any thoughts, anybody?

[olichant]

I did wonder if it would be possible to create something thematic using A=1 etc., but if so, it has eluded me!

[Scorpius]

Once I got my head round the preamble and the mathematical construct the initial grid-fill was straightforward. The endgame looked a nightmare, but I was able to get to the conclusion without cutting up seven 3x3 squares, though I shall do that to confirm I haven't made any errors.

I'm note sure where trial and error, that some have referred to, comes into it. There's no trial and error in the initial fill, and the information provided in the last paragraph is enough to show how each slice is rotated.

I'm not a great fan of the number puzzles, but this was very enjoyable, well within my capabilities (though spatially challenging), and the grid construction is brilliant.

[Oyler]

Agree with Scorpius in that there is no trial and error required if you follow the preamble. As regards the letters chosen they are adjacent pairs apart from 1 and are sort of equally spaced throughout the alphabet EF JK M QR UV. It may be that this makes it easy to identify them. Although VV looks like W. As a setter if there was no other reason for choosing a certain set I would start with A etc or choose letters that were easy to identify given the font used.

[UglyUncle]

I'm always amazed that the setters of numericals can keep coming up with such complex concepts. I've no idea what mental processes must have to be deployed to create and populate a grid like this one, or to write the clues. (How would you devise a clue giving rise, as in each instance here, to a group of square roots *while at the same time ensuring that solvers can follow a foolproof sequence of deductive steps leaving nothing to chance*?) Amazing.

I didn't fall into the 'sum of 150' trap, but I must have used an inefficient method of (non-spreadsheet) elimination in the end-game, as I was delayed by finding more than one scenario in which the sum of 200 emerged, only to be negated by failing to meet the criteria in the final sentence of the preamble.

I see that Loda's 'Conduit' was treated by the arbiters of success as having had two different allowable solutions. Are they going soft? They gave no quarter when they insisted, notoriously, on the use of a Russian character!

[borealis]

Upsetter - glad you have your toys back. Me too. What a wonderful puzzle! After several days (OK, OK, I'm not as fast as most of you) of trial, error, and even spreadsheets, it took, as Jockie said, 45 minutes and 1.5 sides of A4. Unambiguous, logical, and rather beautiful. Thank you Brimstone. I had almost taken last week's quote's advice....

[tristram37]

I thought that in Loda's Conduit the preamble made it quite clear that it was the theme's letters (ie KEYBOARD) that had to be highlighted, not the whole 26 letters of the keyboard. I was therefore surprised to see in the note to the solution the condescending acceptance of only the 8 letters.

[crosswhit99]

If I remember correctly I don't think either group could be accused of not having fully understood the theme, so I guess the editors decided it didn't really matter what was highlighted in the end !

[jim360]

Finally managed to get around to this. Possibly have missed some subtlety that explains why the comment about sums to 200 is necessary, since I could only find one solution to the same-row sums with 1 in the top-left corner constraint. Perhaps I've overlooked a second? Oh well. Thanks Brimstone.

[BMACMAC]

Jim - I think British-Olympics gave a clear explanation of this (message#38).
Basically, as I understand it, if you take your solution, and then rotate slices 3 to 7 a further 180 degrees, this leaves all the row totals the same. Of course, the constraints in the preamble about what occupies the original single digit cell go by the board as a result of this rearrangement, so if you were taking these to guide you to the result then you'd have missed this non-solution, as I did.

[jim360]

Hmm, so you do. Funny, wonder I missed that one. When I was going through looking for solutions I did so by fixing first one row, and then a second (neither of which was the middle row, of course) and managed to find only one solution that made both sum correctly. I must have accidentally missed the alternative solution somehow.

[sunny-dave]

Hard work with just an addled brain and an iphone calculator - perhaps the wine hasn't helped either. Thanks to jim360 for pointing out just how addled I had become when I was stalled on the starting line.

But ... it's done now & is quite neat.