Chadwick's Choice: Solving the London Telegraph Puzzle

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Chadwick, a personal secretary, faced a dilemma when a cigarette burn rendered a crucial number unreadable on a list he needed to submit for a puzzle. With his boss unavailable, he had to choose a number to fill in for Bolivia. The discussion revolves around determining the correct number from a list of entries associated with various countries. The correct answer identified is 1602 for Dominica, but participants express confusion about how to arrive at this solution, with one suggesting a linear system approach, which appears overly complex for the problem at hand. The conversation highlights the challenge of solving the puzzle and the importance of understanding the reasoning behind the numbers.
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Chadwick worked as personal secretary to Forbisher. He was given a list to type up that Forbisher was to submit to the London Telegraph puzzle editor within the hour because he was certain he had solved the puzzle. However Chadwick carelessly dropped a cigarette on the paper before he had a chance to transcribe it. A burn hole made the number next to the second entry impossible to recover. With his boss unavailable, his only choice to save his position was to put a number in and submit it in a timely fashion.

What number should Chadwick put in?

Belize - 51
Bolivia - ?
Andorra - 500
Chad - 600
Vietnam - 1006
Mali - 1051
Colombia - 1151
Dominica - 1602
 
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57 ?
 
That would be correct.
 
Can you explain the answer because I don't get from where that
57
comes from
 
I was thinking about putting it into linear system and solving it

but, 18 vars and 8 equations! :shy:
 
Sakha said:
Can you explain the answer because I don't get from where that
57
comes from

The values are derived from the Roman numerals that are contained within the spelling of the names of the country. < I,V,X,L,C,D,M >
I avoided the use of S that might have been taken as 1/2 because I thought its use was more obscure.

Before anyone says "Aww, no fair." I happened across a similar problem some years ago and puzzled over it for some time before realizing the approach to the solution.
 

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