Hi phrontister;

I do not know if it was causing me any problems or not. Either way, I have downloaded the new pdf. Thanks for finding the mistake.

Hi Bob,

Yes, I was hoping you hadn't yet made serious enough inroads into the solution to be affected by my blunder. >phew!<

The answer to your question is easy: the former. Why shouldn't someone spend an incredible amount of time trying to solve the puzzle if I spent an incredible amount of time creating it?

Given your feelings concerning the inequality of creation time vs solving time for your Ferris Wheel puzzle, you may feel that my observation is unfair. But I'll ignore that.

I do feel rather gratified to have my humble dustbin-bound puzzle mentioned in the same breath as the mighty Rubik's colossus, though!

Hi Bobby,

The error didn't show up in my spreadsheet solution because of the way I'd set it up: it took the "twice" into account automatically...which I don't think is a flaw necessarily.

It therefore snuck under my guard with the puzzle wording.

The M solution (as done by the person who solved my puzzle) is set up differently, and requires its specific inclusion...which I'm sure is not a flaw either. The problem was that I didn't understand M's solution well enough to have realised the necessity of that inclusion.

After changing my M solution to that of your puzzle and finding that it disagreed with Excel's, I knew something was up. Luckily the fix wasn't too difficult to achieve.

It's nice that the two solution methods give the same result.

Hi Bobby,

I'll try to squeeeeze those examples onto the already-chockablock puzzle page, but there may be no room.

Here's an example for "the reverse of the digit product of the digit sum" of n:

If n = 51479, then we get: the reverse (21) of the digit product (12) of the digit sum (26) of 51479.
(a) n's digit sum = 5+1+4+7+9 = 26; from which...
(b) digit product of 26 = 2 x 6 = 12; from which...
(c) the reverse of 12 = 21

Btw, I've uploaded the solution files to my file host, ready to PM to you. Shall I send them later - after you've finished with this puzzle (ie, solved it or hurled it into the bin) - or would you like them now?

Good luck with it this time...hope you can get somewhere with it.

Hi Bobby,

Thanks, I always get something when working on a problem.

If that's 'get' as in 'understand', that's good.

But if not, that might be bad.

Did you see that i in there? Now I am hitting two keys for the price of one.

I thought the 'i' was there as a pronunciation guide to that word, but I couldn't make head or tail of it and so removed it.

I get both.

I also get a cuppa when working on a problem.

PM sent.

Last edited by phrontister (2012-06-16 22:46:15)

+61

I assumed she was in Oz.

Bob

Hi phrontister;

Got it! Thanks, hopefully I will have something better...

Hi;

Okay, thanks. I made a little progress today!

Hi;

Yes, I will tell you as soon as I get there.

Regarding our conversation:

If I have indeed come up with a novel solution, I ask that I be allowed to try to bring it to a conclusion. That is not saying that I will be able to. There are several points that are still mysterious to me.

Hi;

In keeping with your comments in the first pm I will go over to a more conventional solution try. One you had in mind.