in reply to One for the weekend: challenge

Pfah! Cannot they write problems like this without ambiguities? We hates them, we do.

The one that's bothering me is the "can" in: "If and only if at a particular point no word at all from the dictionary can be inserted,". Does that mean "can be inserted to successfully produce a solution"? Or "can be inserted whether or not a correct solution results"? If the former, given the single-word dictionary "aaa", "55555" has solution "5 aaa 5". If the latter, it has no solutions.

--
Online Fortune Cookie Search

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: One for the weekend: challenge
by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Jun 01, 2008 at 12:13 UTC

    I would suggest that all ambiguities are resolved by example. In this case, the following would seem to apply:

    4824: 4 Ort, because in place of the first digit the words Torf, fort, Tor could be used

    I read that to say, that as 'aaa' can be applied at the first step, inserting a digit at that point is illegal. Therefore your example has no solutions.

    Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.
    "Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".
    In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.
[reply]
      Nope, that doesn't do it, because using Torf ,fort, or Tor 4 produces a solution. My doubt is whether a digit can be inserted where there could be a word, but not one that produces a solution.

      I haven't rigorously examined the sample solutions for lack of one that would establish the point, nor do I really care to.

      --
      Online Fortune Cookie Search
[reply]
        My doubt is whether a digit can be inserted where there could be a word, but not one that produces a solution.

        Well. I think it is perfectly clear. You cannot use a digit at any point where a word is available. (*)

        (*) I was about to add 'regardless of whether a solution can be achieved', but it is unnecessary. If there is a word available, you cannot ignore that word and use a digit. For any reason, including achieving a solution that would otherwise be complient.

        For the record, without that rule, there would be many more solutions that are presented in the official results.

        Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.
        "Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".
        In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.
[reply]
      BrowserUk,
      I also read the rules incorrectly because of the following example: 
      04824: 0 Torf
04824: 0 fort
04824: 0 Tor 4

      [download]
      The last solution is what lead me astray. If it had read:

      As you work left to right, if at any point a word can be inserted - using a digit is illegal and at no point can two digits be adjacent

      I would have understood much better. In any event, my solution is buggy and produces incorrect results. Since it seems like you were after approaches, I believe mine is interesting because of the unrestricted integer partitions. I have no interest at this point in making it a correct solution.

      Cheers - L~R

[reply]
[d/l]
[reply]
Re^2: One for the weekend: challenge
by karavelov (Monk) on Jun 01, 2008 at 06:20 UTC
    We are looking only for correct results, aren't we? So, I think that only the first interpretation is correct. In your example, the "5 aaa 5" case.
[reply]
[reply]

In Section Meditations