I vaguely seem to remember from math lessons long long ago, that to guarantee a unique solution, you must have at least as many "mutually independent" equations (the right mathematical name escapes me, what I mean is equations which cannot be simply transformed into each other; eg: 'A = 2' and '2 * A = 4' are not mutually independent) as there are variables.

So for a system with 11 variables, 5 hints plus the mystery word do not guarantee you a unique solution, which seems to tally with the results reported. Of course the requirement that the word must exist, may make the solution unique but that is beyond mathematics!

CountZero

"If you have four groups working on a compiler, you'll get a 4-pass compiler." - Conway's Law

In reply to Re^2: Challenge: Mystery Word Puzzle by CountZero
in thread Challenge: Mystery Word Puzzle by Limbic~Region

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