Find Missing Number & Character: Solve the Puzzle

  • Context: High School 
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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around a puzzle involving a missing number and character, presented in a visual format. Participants explore various approaches to deduce the missing element based on arithmetic relationships and patterns within the provided diagram. The conversation includes attempts to clarify the nature of the relationships involved and the reasoning behind their guesses.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Debate/contested
  • Mathematical reasoning

Main Points Raised

  • One participant suggests the missing character might be 12, based on the idea that the upper and lower halves could have the same sum.
  • Another participant claims to have arrived at the answer of 5 but does not elaborate on the method.
  • Some participants express frustration over the lack of clarity in the hints provided, questioning whether the puzzle involves addition, multiplication, or relationships between different sections of the diagram.
  • A participant proposes that the solution may involve fractions and hints at a possible relationship between the quadrants.
  • Another participant mentions that the choice of quadrants is crucial and that the puzzle may not be challenging if the correct quadrants are selected.
  • There is a discussion about the nature of the relationship being sought, with some suggesting it is not a precise mathematical relation but rather a "closest to" relation.
  • One participant expresses irritation at the puzzle's design, noting that the layout suggests a symmetry that is not present in the solution.
  • Another participant counters that the perceived pattern is not entirely spurious and emphasizes the importance of identifying the correct pattern among many possibilities.
  • There are reflections on the nature of puzzles and how they can be misleading, with some participants sharing their experiences with similar problems.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants do not reach a consensus on the solution or the nature of the relationships involved in the puzzle. Multiple competing views and interpretations of the puzzle's structure and hints remain present throughout the discussion.

Contextual Notes

Some participants express that the puzzle's layout may imply a different pattern than what is actually required to find the solution, leading to confusion. There is also mention of the potential for various interpretations of the relationships between numbers in different quadrants.

zorro
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Find the missing character:

[URL]http://203.196.176.41/VLEBT_RootRepository/Resources/00691241-f3e9-4bb4-a75b-2dd1dd260922.gif[/URL]

The answer given is
5
and I have no way to figure it out. It might be 12 according to me because the upper half and lower half can have the same sum.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
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I get 5
 
how?
 
Abdul Quadeer said:
how?

That would spoil the fun...
 
DaveC426913 said:
That would spoil the fun...

exactly

but I'll give you a hint ... it's VERY simple arithmetic
 
phinds said:
but I'll give you a hint ... it's VERY simple arithmetic

Thats not a hint. Such questions are always based on simple arithmetic. Tell me whether it involves addition, multiplication...?, relationship between the numbers in upper half/lower half or right half/left half?
 
Abdul Quadeer said:
Thats not a hint. Such questions are always based on simple arithmetic. Tell me whether it involves addition, multiplication...?, relationship between the numbers in upper half/lower half or right half/left half?

You don't want a hint, you want a tug on the nose ring. :biggrin:

That being said, I have not figured it out either. But if he gives me the hints you asked for, it will pretty much be solved anyway.


My guess is that it has something to with fractions in the four quadrants. 2/3:5:7 :: ?/7:11/15 is not quite right but I think that's the nut to crack.
 
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very likely your problem is that you are not picking the right quadrants to compare. Perhaps I just stumbled on it, but I have done a LOT of these problems (I love them) and did not find this one challenging, although I can certainly see that if you don't pick the right quadrants, it just isn't going to have an answer.

One more hint. There is nothing complicated about which sets of quadrants to pick. That is, it's not some odd or random pattern in the quadrants but rather an extremely regular grouping.
 
phinds said:
very likely your problem is that you are not picking the right quadrants to compare. Perhaps I just stumbled on it, but I have done a LOT of these problems (I love them) and did not find this one challenging, although I can certainly see that if you don't pick the right quadrants, it just isn't going to have an answer.

One more hint. There is nothing complicated about which sets of quadrants to pick. That is, it's not some odd or random pattern in the quadrants but rather an extremely regular grouping.

And, correct me if I'm wrong, one of the tricky bits is that it is not a precise mathematical relation. i.e. it is the more like a "closest to" relation - such as "nearest fraction to".
 
  • #10
DaveC426913 said:
And, correct me if I'm wrong, one of the tricky bits is that it is not a precise mathematical relation. i.e. it is the more like a "closest to" relation - such as "nearest fraction to".

No, it's much more straightforward than that (it's an exact outcome), but it does use more than one arithmetic operator.
 
  • #11
This is what I got back solving -
In the 3rd quadrant, (7+5)/2 - 1 gives 2+3 which in the 2nd quadrant
Now this pattern is opposite in the right half i.e. (11+15)/2 - 1 gives 12 which equals 7 + 5. But I don't think it is possible to figure this out without knowing the answer or may be it is (possible).
 
  • #12
Abdul Quadeer said:
This is what I got back solving -
In the 3rd quadrant, (7+5)/2 - 1 gives 2+3 which in the 2nd quadrant
Now this pattern is opposite in the right half i.e. (11+15)/2 - 1 gives 12 which equals 7 + 5. But I don't think it is possible to figure this out without knowing the answer or may be it is (possible).

You are getting WAAAYYY too complicated.
 
  • #13
Don't know if this will be encouraging or not but I gave this to my son (who is a drama major but is very bright) and it took him 1/2 hour to get it.
 
  • #14
phinds said:
You are getting WAAAYYY too complicated.

Thats all I could think of. Now since I have solved it tell me your method.
 
  • #15
2x+1
 
  • #16
Doh.
 
  • #17
DaveC426913 said:
Doh.

Yeah, I sometimes feel the same way once I finally get one of these. I just happened to see this one almost immediately.
 
  • #18
piece of cake...lol
 
  • #19
I consider this one a bit irritating (as with so many similar puzzles) because the answer shows that values in right half of diagram are simply a systematic function of those in left half, but the diagram misleadingly suggests a more general rotational symmetry.
 
  • #20
Jonathan Scott said:
I consider this one a bit irritating (as with so many similar puzzles) because the answer shows that values in right half of diagram are simply a systematic function of those in left half, but the diagram misleadingly suggests a more general rotational symmetry.
Why is that irritating? Should the puzzle walk you down a garden path to the answer?
 
  • #21
DaveC426913 said:
Why is that irritating? Should the puzzle walk you down a garden path to the answer?

The solution involves trying to find a rule which accounts for a pattern, but in this case the structure of the diagram implies a different pattern from the actual answer, which undermines the point of the puzzle. The obvious question "why is it arranged like that?" is expected to be relevant to the puzzle, but turns out to be completely spurious.
 
  • #22
Jonathan Scott said:
The solution involves trying to find a rule which accounts for a pattern, but in this case the structure of the diagram implies a different pattern from the actual answer, which undermines the point of the puzzle. The obvious question "why is it arranged like that?" is expected to be relevant to the puzzle, but turns out to be completely spurious.

The pattern is not completely spurious; it is quite straightforward, quite regular and quite relevant to the puzzle.

The problem here that you are interpreting what you think the pattern is. You see a rotational pattern. Surely that's not the only pattern you see?

I toyed with a rotational pattern as one possible pattern, but I sure didn't make the mistake of assuming that's what the solution was supposed to be. I looked at quadrants, I looked at complementary zones, I looked at adjacent patterns and mirror patterns. That's point of a puzzle, find the one pattern in a sea of possible patterns.

(Did it occur to you that each quadrant could represent a fraction? 2/3, 5/7 11/15 and that these fractions might have a pattern?)

It sounds to me like you're used to doing very easy puzzles, where there are strong hints in the puzzle to lead you down a garden path.
 
  • #23
DaveC426913 said:
The pattern is not completely spurious; it is quite straightforward, quite regular and quite relevant to the puzzle.

The problem here that you are interpreting what you think the pattern is. You see a rotational pattern. Surely that's not the only pattern you see?

I toyed with a rotational pattern as one possible pattern, but I sure didn't make the mistake of assuming that's what the solution was supposed to be. I looked at quadrants, I looked at complementary zones, I looked at adjacent patterns and mirror patterns. That's point of a puzzle, find the one pattern in a sea of possible patterns.

(Did it occur to you that each quadrant could represent a fraction? 2/3, 5/7 11/15 and that these fractions might have a pattern?)

It sounds to me like you're used to doing very easy puzzles, where there are strong hints in the puzzle to lead you down a garden path.

I don't do puzzles very much now; I did quite a lot about 40 years ago, but I can mostly find better uses for my brain now. I didn't even do this one; I happened to look at the thread after someone had already solved it, so I don't know how difficult it would have been. I was merely commenting on the fact that I found it irritating that the layout suggested a symmetry which was not present in the solution. I guess it could have been rotated 90, 180 or 270 degrees without really making much difference, and if all the numbers had for example moved round one slot either way so the "maps to" line was diagonal, it could still have been considered valid. I therefore felt it was rather a "weak" puzzle.

Most of my puzzles now come as part of my systems software developer job, for example trying to guess how a 1-bit overwrite occurred at an apparently random address in protected operating system storage in a heavily loaded transaction processing system. In such cases, noticing patterns - things that are common or different - is key to solving the problems. A couple of weeks ago, it was the absence of a particular routine progress message (normally hidden in hundreds of others) which turned out to be the key clue. In such "real life" puzzles, there may occasionally be irrelevant patterns, but they aren't usually added just to waste time.
 
  • #24
Jonathan Scott said:
I was merely commenting on the fact that I found it irritating that the layout suggested a symmetry which was not present in the solution.
The layout suggests only as many symmetries as the imagination of the person solving it. I still don't know why you think it suggests rotational symmetry any more than any other kind of symmetry, such as mirror or quadrant.

In fact, if your logic were sound, and the pattern were rotational, you should have expected the puzzle to be circular. The fact that it's
a] rectangular and
b] has vertical, horizontal and 45 degree symmetry
should have suggested to you (as it did to me) mirror or quadrant. Which, in fact, the puzzle is.


Jonathan Scott said:
Most of my puzzles now come as part of my systems software developer job...

Ah well, being a software developer myself, and having not solved it, I think we can agree that software dev skills are not a prerequisite to solving puzzles for entertainment. In fact, it could work to our detriment. :biggrin:
 
  • #25
DaveC426913 said:
Ah well, being a software developer myself, and having not solved it, I think we can agree that software dev skills are not a prerequisite to solving puzzles for entertainment. In fact, it could work to our detriment. :biggrin:

Well, I'm not so sure about that. I've been writing programs for 49 years now (I don't do it for a living any more ... I manage people who do it for a living) and it seems to me that the math-oriented mind that is good at programming is usually good at these kinds of things. I certainly agree w/ you that it is very odd that Jonathan Scott insists on constraining his imagination so much.
 
  • #26
phinds said:
I've been writing programs for 49 years now
How's that COBOL comin' along? :biggrin:
 
  • #27
DaveC426913 said:
How's that COBOL comin' along? :biggrin:

The ONE single computer language that I have avoided like the plague !

Jeez, I hate that language. I can't think of any other languge that had any widespread use up to about 20 years ago that I did not become a guru in, including a few that most people now have never even heard of, such as APL.

Well, I guess that statement is not exactly true, since I only became expert in 5 or so different assembly languages out of who knows how many there were.
 
  • #28
phinds said:
The ONE single computer language that I have avoided like the plague !

Jeez, I hate that language.

I had to learn some of it in school. Ugh. If I wanted to write a novel, I'd have been a novel writer.
 
  • #29
DaveC426913 said:
I had to learn some of it in school. Ugh. If I wanted to write a novel, I'd have been a novel writer.

Hm ... smilies seem to be reduce to just a few. Was going to put big grin.

Yeah, I agree w/ that. I actually DID have to use it a little once, that's how I know I hate it.
 

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