Re: MathsBombe

On 09/02/2025 09:40, David Entwistle wrote:

On Sun, 19 Jan 2025 19:57:26 -0000 (UTC), David Entwistle wrote:
 

"MathsBombe is aimed at students up to Year 13 (England and Wales), S6
(Scotland), Year 14 (Northern Ireland). You don't need to be a computer
whizz or a mathematical genius — you just need to keep your wits about
you and be good at solving puzzles!"
>
Starts 16:00 GMT, 22nd January, 2025.
>
https://www.maths.manchester.ac.uk/mathsbombe/

 Please don't post a direct answer to the question posed, but I'd welcome a
bit of guidance on Mathsbombe question 3.
 When I look at the question, my reaction is "that doesn't look possible".
The "any positive integer cost can be paid" part of the question seems
problematic. Am I misreading, or misunderstanding the question?

I agree; it doesn't look possible. I was tempted to cut code, but I hit two ambiguities. What, precisely, does "no more than 14 coins of every given denomination" mean? It could mean an up-to-14-coin subset of the available range, or up to 14 totapennies PLUS up to 14 totatuppences PLUS up to 14 totathruppences and so on ad nauseam. And what does "any positive integer" mean? Does it, for example, include bloodybignumber? If so, how about bloodybignumber factorial?
I don't care enough, I'm afraid, but if I *did*, then having resolved those dilemmae, I would probably look at brute forcing a few thousand candidate x's (3.0000, 3.0001, 3.0002, 3.0003 etc) and then try to spot a pattern.
I would also look for tricks, eg i.
--
Richard Heathfield
Email: rjh at cpax dot org dot uk
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
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