Which Country are u from Bobbym?

I come from a country which contributed Zero to the World

Oh! Sarah wants to know Bobbym's  age? She might read the following:

It is a real number which is rational and positive and is between 0 to 100!

I am sure he is not older than that

Hi guys yes i love BBQ.

Me to i love all of that.

Hi all!

Here is a puzzle that solves the question of Bobby's age.

Image
PDF

The puzzle consists of two parts, and you'll need to solve Part A before you can solve Part B.

Obtaining the solution is not as easy as it might at first appear!

Bobby won't need to solve the puzzle because he already knows his age (unless he doesn't, and wants to find out), but if he does solve it he won't help you work out his age (because so far he hasn't). And it's no use ringing Joan for help, either, 'cos she's moved on.

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Last edited by phrontister (2013-04-20 21:02:54)

Hi Bobby,

1) Does your changes affect the solution?

Are you referring to today's edit to this (your) puzzle, or are you wondering if your puzzle has a different solution from my original YOB puzzle that I posted in the Puzzles and Games forum, and which is the one that you started work on some time back?

If the former, then the answer is no, because the change is only to the 'Solution Check', not to the puzzle itself. I hadn't made my intention clear there and had to clarify it.

If the latter, then the answer is yes. Because of the vaaaast age gap between us I had to change your puzzle so that the solution differed from mine. Of course it just wouldn't do to have the same (unchanged) puzzle for both of us as then one or the other, or both, of the solutions would be untrue.

2) When the problem say sum of digits or product digits does it mean

1936 = 19 = 9 or 1936 = 19.

The digit sum of 1936 = 1+9+3+6 = 19

The digit product of 1936 = 1*9*3*6 = 162

The digit product of the digit sum of 1936 = 1+9+3+6 = 19 = 1*9 = 9 (as you said).

Since you have provided the excel functions for those operations anyone using them would know the answer to that.

I gave the .doc and .pdf links to make it easy for anyone using Excel to copy the formulas and paste them into their spreadsheet. Those two formats also have the 'live' link to the prime-factorization function.

Btw, where's ZHero? After solving Part A of my puzzle he threatened to try to solve Part B...and hasn't been seen or heard from since. I guess he's still working on it, and that it's taking up all of his time. Sorry, ZHero!

So I had better use your new pdf rather than the old one I have been using?

Yes. Then you'll find out how old you really are instead of how old I really am!

...I have been using?

?????

In chess the threat is stronger than the execution ( Siegbert Tarrasch ) but in math the threat is kaboobly doo.

A dog's bark can be worse than their bite, but not to one who is deaf.

I can only find one instance of "kaboobly doo" on the net, and I think it's in relation to something not going the way that you want it to.

Last edited by phrontister (2011-03-24 20:58:04)

...that is the one I have been using

"I have been using" implies some deliberate, ongoing human activity, not just that of a passing zephyr troubling a still piece of paper.

I just supposed you took your age and would be making it my age.

That would have been the easy way out, but I didn't want to shatter Tigeree's image of a young me by equalling our ages (I assume she thinks you're much older than I am).

Besides, I enjoyed the challenge of doing the number gymnastics to come up with this variation...which wasn't easy to achieve, but nutting it all out was very interesting. My spreadsheet helped quite a bit with testing the various options I gave it.

The idea of doing that only came to me last night after I read a couple of recent posts here showing renewed interest in finding out your age.

The biggest change I made was to the solution check, which I hope will cause a bit of head-scratching.

Bullying has been aired a fair bit on the radio here lately. I don't know much about the subject, but I agree that the effect of threats can be greater than their actual carrying out.

I currently do not believe in life after my age.

Do you mean your age in years? So when you're older in years than your present age, that's the end?

Spook has an idea about life's end...

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Hi guys Phrontister I really dont understand what you are talking about.

Hi Sarah,

We were mainly talking about a very tricky puzzle that I made up that works out Bobby's age, but the way that we were talking may not be easy to follow unless you know a bit about these kinds of puzzles.

It reminds me of the way I talk to my brother. We get so silly at times that sometimes I wonder what other people would think if they heard us! But we understand each other because we've always been that way together.

Hi Bobby,

Yes, this familiar way of speaking helps with bonding, I think.

We Aussies tend to do that a bit, particularly amongst fellows. The guys I play golf with are all that way inclined and a lot of rib-poking goes on. While we can be quite self-deprecating at times (which people from some other countries don't understand - they take what we say more literally) we don't let it remain there, and like to keep one another humble: for example, by letting them know what wonderful golfers they're not and what they need to do to improve their game. We laugh together at our own short-comings, while at the same time being there to help each other improve.

Being able to get away with that sort of familiarity somehow draws friends closer together, maybe because of the unspoken understanding of the intent of it all. We're not always silly, of course, and look out for each other in many different ways...which is greatly appreciated.

Ok i see yes i got up early.