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#3576 Re: Puzzles and Games » Apple problem » 2009-07-15 22:00:07
apple noun: the firm round edible fruit of the apple-tree.
I'd say that once eaten it is no longer:
(a) "firm" - it's moosh
(c) "round" - unless you swallowed it
(b) "edible" - except for ruminants
(d) recognisable as "fruit of the apple-tree" - alphabet soup (or some such), maybe
I reckon 8, unless this thread goes on so long that they all rot, in which case I wouldn't be eating any! 
#3577 Re: Puzzles and Games » Flys » 2009-07-15 21:05:57
Sorry, Tigeree, I couldn't find any pics...but I dug up some info for you:
According to Ebers Papyrus, which is "the oldest and arguably the most important preserved medical record of antiquity" (dating back to about 1552BC and apparently being "a complete record of known Egyptian medical knowledge"), the ancient Egyptian remedy for stopping a baby from crying was to give it a medicinal paste made from a mixture of spn seeds (whatever they are) and fly dung, which were strained and fed to the baby on four consecutive days. The crying was meant to cease instantly. (EB.782) 
(I can think of a very good reason why the crying would cease instantly! And if I were that infant I'd make very sure I stopped crying before being fed that paste!)
According to a forensic source, fly droppings "are composed of a material homogeneous, amorphous, transparent, uncoloured, swollen, dissociated by, or dissolved in, water. They're "a yellow brown, some with a greenish reflection, others with a reddish reflection, faintly pronounced. They all strongly refract light, clear at the centre, dark on the periphery, as fatty bodies; also like fat granules, they're insoluble in water and in acetic acid and almost all dissolve in hot alcohol and in ether. Some small crystals in the form of short needles of undetermined chemical composition accompany them."
I'd avoid eating that pizza and the meatballs at all costs, the favourable weight of probabilities notwithstanding!
#3578 Re: Puzzles and Games » Joan's telephone number & my YOB » 2009-07-15 12:01:49
Hi bobbym and mathsyperson,
I've only dabbled a bit in programming code and haven't learnt efficient, optimised techniques. I just know enough BASIC to get by with simple puzzle stuff...which keeps me happy enough, although I sometimes wish I knew more. At times I wonder how my clumsy efforts could be improved to look and perform better with more efficient coding...but I'll just continue to dream about it, as there's a limit to my limited time!
My BASIC program runs in approx 1 second, while the person who wrote the 'C' code said theirs ran in 0.017sec. That time difference is about as long as it takes me to sneeze, so I won't worry too much about it.
Here's an image of an Excel 4.0 macro that someone sent me. With MESSAGE (cell D12) 'on' it runs in 17 seconds, and with it 'off' it takes 6 seconds. Those times are for Excel v2002...in v2007 it takes 419 secs (yes - that's right!!) and 8 secs respectively.
Still, I'm not too concerned about any of that as Part A comprises only a tiny portion of the whole puzzle. It's only there to get things started for Part B, which is a MUCH more serious undertaking.
Recently I made several improvements to my spreadsheet solution. This has reduced the time for the entire process of testing the 0-3000 AD year range against the many rules to find my YOB and Part A's YOP, including performing the "Solution check", to just 1 second. 
#3579 Re: Puzzles and Games » Joan's telephone number & my YOB » 2009-07-15 04:15:11
Hi bobbym,
Here's my code:
#3580 Re: Puzzles and Games » Joan's telephone number & my YOB » 2009-07-15 03:52:41
Hi, mathsyperson. Thanks for posting your method.
Mine has some parallels with yours. I've tried to explain my method but found the going a bit difficult. It's too wordy and not as neatly-structured as yours...but I hope it makes sense:
The answer will probably jump out at me as soon as I post this, but there's something about your method that I don't understand:
#3581 Re: Puzzles and Games » Joan's telephone number & my YOB » 2009-07-13 22:42:03
Hi bobbym,
Yes - that's the right answer to Part A.
What method did you use?
So far I've come across 3 quite different ones:
I've just re-read my first post and have realised that in the excitement of the occasion of that important posting event I told a lie. @'.'@
I didn't compose Part A - a good friend of mine did, and had it published in a puzzle magazine...which also published her solution strategy. She was quite interested to find out that I'd added a Part B to her puzzle, but sadly she's also very interested in avoiding trying to solve it! 
#3582 Puzzles and Games » Joan's telephone number & my YOB » 2009-07-12 19:24:27
- phrontister
- Replies: 19
Hi all!
This is my first post on the forum and I'm a little unsure of the suitability of my puzzle here because of the need to use a computer to find the solution...but I'd like to share it because I've had a lot of fun composing it and I reckon it's a good brain teaser (I hope). Sorry about it being so long, but it grew over time as ideas to 'improve' it popped into my head.
Much of the puzzle can be solved longhand, but Part B's YOB and YOP components are definitely best tackled with the help of a computer. I composed those two components in Excel (spreadsheet) and had to overcome Excel's lack of certain digit-manipulation functions...for which I've given array formulas (found on the internet) and a link to a prime-factorization function (also found on the internet). Just ignore the bits in blue if you'd rather use your own techniques.
No advanced math knowledge is required - not beyond high school, anyway - otherwise someone else would have had to compose my puzzle!
I've posted it on three other puzzle forums and although two people have solved it (an older version with a different solution, actually), the puzzle hasn't exactly prompted fierce discussion. Because I'm fairly new to Excel and VBA I'd hoped to get some feedback about others' Excel techniques and learn from them, but so far all has been quiet on that front. Anyway...
Enjoy!