Challenge Riddles and Puzzles: Extend the following to a valid equation

[fresh_42]

This must be against some law, but ok ...

Spoiler

The water glass now contains 90% (180 ml) of water and 10% (20 ml) of wine. Thus, the wine glass must contain the remainder, i.e., 180 ml of wine (90%) and 20 ml of water (10%).

It is semi illegal.$^*)$

$^*)$ Only allowed for the female half of the population.

 

[fresh_42]

This time I will leave the usual story about sons and heritages etc. but expect a little use of mspaint or similar:

18. Can this field be partitioned in four equally sized, congruent parts?

 

[DavidSnider]

This time I will leave the usual story about sons and heritages etc. but expect a little use of mspaint or similar:

View attachment 242868

18. Can this field be partitioned in four equally sized, congruent parts?

Spoiler: spoiler

 

[fresh_42]

Spoiler: spoiler

View attachment 242893

I can see the solution shine through, but hell, what have you done? Did you include a proof of congruence?

 

[DavidSnider]

I can see the solution shine through, but hell, what have you done? Did you include a proof of congruence?

No I was just playing around with GeoGebra. Wouldn't know how to show the proof.

 

[fresh_42]

For those who don't see it:

 

[fresh_42]

19. Construct $21$ with symbols from $\{\,1,5,6,7,*,/,+,-,(,)\,\}$ but use the digits at most once.

 

[BvU]

Spoiler

15+6

 

[fresh_42]

Spoiler

15+6

Nice. I should have said: all digits exactly once, or not combined as two digit numbers.

 

[BvU]

Moving the goal posts eh ... ?

 

[fresh_42]

Moving the goal posts eh ... ?

I know, my bad. But 15+6 is too easy.

 

[DavidSnider]

19. Construct $21$ with symbols from $\{\,1,5,6,7,*,/,+,-,(,)\,\}$ but use the digits at most once.

Spoiler: spoiler

6 / (1 - (5/7))

 

[fresh_42]

20. The king gives the convicted one last chance to save his life. The prisoner receives 50 white and 50 black balls, which he may arbitrarily distribute to two identical-looking vessels. The next day he has to randomly pick a vessel and draw a ball out of it. He will be executed at black, pardoned for white.

How must the prisoner distribute the balls so that his chances to survive are as high as possible?

 

[pbuk]

15. What is the smallest prime which includes all ten digits exactly once?

There are of course some 'cheating' answers e.g. 1,023,457,986₂₃ = 1,808,433,654,721₁₀ which is prime (probably not the smallest such prime though).

Or to take the radix cheat further, how about 2_134567890?

 

[mfb]

How must the prisoner distribute the balls so that his chances to survive are as high as possible?

Spoiler

(1 white) and (49 white 50 black).
Proof that it is optimal: More than 50% in a vessel requires more white than black there which forces less than 50% in the other one. 49/99 is the closest you can get to 50% winning chance if you have fewer white than black balls, and 100% winning chance is clearly optimal for the other vessel. This strategy is optimal if one vessel has fewer than 50% winning chance. This strategy also beats 50% in both, therefore it must be optimal overall.

 

[fresh_42]

Correct, with an overall chance of almost $3/4$.

21. Which are the numbers (as symbols) $n_0,\ldots ,n_9$ such that the following statement is true:
'This sentence contains $n_0$ times the $0$, $n_1$ times the $1$, $n_2$ times the $2, \ldots$ and $n_9$ times the $9$'?

(And don't force me to phrase it without backdoors, you know what I mean.)

 

[DavidSnider]

Correct, with an overall chance of almost $3/4$.

21. Which are the numbers (as symbols) $n_0,\ldots ,n_9$ such that the following statement is true:
'This sentence contains $n_0$ times the $0$, $n_1$ times the $1$, $n_2$ times the $2, \ldots$ and $n_9$ times the $9$'?

(And don't force me to phrase it without backdoors, you know what I mean.)

I don't think I understand what this is asking. "This sentence contains n0 times the 0". "The" 0?

 

[fresh_42]

'This sentence contains 1 times the 0 and 2 times 1.' is true. The question is: how do we have to chose the $n_i$ that the sentence with all digits is true.

 

[DavidSnider]

'This sentence contains 1 times the 0 and 2 times 1.' is true. The question is: how do we have to chose the $n_i$ that the sentence with all digits is true.

Spoiler: spoiler

11,10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2 -> 0, 10, 18, 24, 28, 30, 30, 28, 24, 18

 

[fresh_42]

Spoiler: spoiler

11,10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2 -> 0, 10, 18, 24, 28, 30, 30, 28, 24, 18

What do you mean by this? We need a vector $\vec{n} \in \mathbb{Z}^{10}$ such that

'This sentence contains $n_0$ times $0$, $n_1$ times $1$, $n_2$ times $2$ … and $n_9$ times $9$.'

is true. This implies that $n_i \leq 11$ is an upper bound. But actually no component is greater than nine, so $\vec{n} \in \{\,1,2,\ldots,9\,\}^{10}$.

 

[mfb]

Spoiler: spoiler

11,10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2 -> 0, 10, 18, 24, 28, 30, 30, 28, 24, 18

That would need e.g. 11 zeros in the sentence "This sentence has 11 times '0', 10 times '1', ...", but the sentence with your numbers plugged in doesn't have that many (it just has 2).
Maybe it is clearer if we add "digit"?

"This sentence contains n₀ times the digit '0', n₁ times the digit '1', ..."

 

[DavidSnider]

That would need e.g. 11 zeros in the sentence "This sentence has 11 times '0', 10 times '1', ...", but the sentence with your numbers plugged in doesn't have that many (it just has 2).
Maybe it is clearer if we add "digit"?

"This sentence contains n₀ times the digit '0', n₁ times the digit '1', ..."

Ahh I see. "This sentence contains n0 occurances of '0', n1 occurances of '1', "

 

[DavidSnider]

Correct, with an overall chance of almost $3/4$.

21. Which are the numbers (as symbols) $n_0,\ldots ,n_9$ such that the following statement is true:
'This sentence contains $n_0$ times the $0$, $n_1$ times the $1$, $n_2$ times the $2, \ldots$ and $n_9$ times the $9$'?

(And don't force me to phrase it without backdoors, you know what I mean.)

Spoiler: spoiler

1732111211
'This sentence contains
1 times the '0'
7 times the '1'
3 times the '2'
2 times the '3',
1 times the '4',
1 times the '5',
1 times the '6',
2 times the '7',
1 times the '8',
1 times the '9'

 

[fresh_42]

22. There are enough beads in three colors to make bracelets with 6 pearls each. Not all three colors need to be used, i.e. there are e.g. also bracelets with six pearls of the same color. Such a bracelet has no beginning and no end. How many different bracelets are there?

 

[lpetrich]

I solved it with brute force with Mathematica:

Spoiler

There are 92 distinct necklaces to within rotation and reflection symmetry. Without including those symmetries, there are 729.

I will attempt to work it out by hand in my next post.

 

[lpetrich]

Here is my more explicit solution:

Spoiler

For one kind of bead, we get solutions of form rrrrrr, gggggg, bbbbb: 3 solutions.

For two kinds of bead, we get solutions like 5 r's 1 g and similar for gr, rb, br, gb, bg, 4r's 2g's, and 3r's 3g's and similar for rb, gb.

rrrrrg - 1 - 6
rrrrgg rrrgrg rrgrrg - 3 - 18
rrrggg rrgrgg rgrgrg - 3 - 9
For 2 different kinds of beads, 33, for at most 2, 36.

rrrrgb rrrgrb rrgrrb - 3 - 9
rrrggb rrgrgb rgrrgb grrrgb rrggrb rgrgrb - 6 - 36
rrggbb - 1 - 1
rgrgbb rggrbb - 2 - 6
rgrbgb - 1 - 3
rgbrgb - 1 - 1
For 3 different kinds of beads, 56, for at most 3, 92.

I could try to derive some general formula.

 

[mfb]

Alternative counting method:

Spoiler

Notation: XYZ are colors where multiple letters can be the same color, xyz are distinct (but unspecified) colors.

Group by symmetry.

• 60 degree symmetry: 3 bracelets (the uni-color ones)
• 120 degree symmetry but no 180 degree symmetry: 3 (xyxyxy)
• 180 degree symmetry: 3*3*3 options for three beads in fixed order. 3 options are unicolor and counted before, leaving 24. As XYZ=YZX=ZXY we divide by 3 to get 8. In addition xyz=zyx from mirror symmetry, which only matters if all three colors are used, reducing the number by 1. Cross-check: Truly different options are xxy (3*2 options for the colors) and xyz (1 option). In total: 7
• Mirror symmetry across two beads but no rotation symmetry: We are free to choose 4 beads (2 on the symmetry axis, two outside , 3⁴=81 options. Again 3 are unicolor, 6 have 120 degree symmetry (xyxy) and 6 have 180 degree symmetry (xyyx), leaving 66. We double-counted (XYZA=AZYX), leaving 33 truly different options.
• Mirror symmetry through edges: We are free to choose 3 beads (27 options) and subtract unicolor (3) and 180 degree symmetry (6, xyx), leaving 18. By avoiding the 180 degree symmetry we also avoid a double mirror symmetry. Again we double-counted so we get 9. Cross check: 3 from xyz-zyx, 6 from xxy-yxx. Fits -> 9.
• No symmetry. If we ignore symmetries there are 3⁶=729 options. In general 12 options lead to the same bracelet so we have to divide - but we have to take care of the symmetric cases separately. We subtract 3 for the unicolor bracelets (just one orientation), 3*2=6 for the 120 degree symmetry (two orientations), 3³-3=24 for the 180 degree symmetry (but not unicolor), 33*6=198 for the first mirror symmetry, 9*6=54 for the second symmetry, leaving 444 options. Divide by 12 and we get 37 options.
  
  Overall sum: 3+3+7+33+9+37=92.
  Annotated quote matching the groups to the previous solution:
  

  rrrrrr, gggggg, bbbbb - 3, unicolor
  rrrrrg - 1 - 6 - mirror symmetry through beads
  rrrrgg rrrgrg rrgrrg - 3 - 18 - mirror symmetry through edge, mirror symmetry through beads, 180 degree symmetry (6 each)
  rrrggg rrgrgg rgrgrg - 3 - 9 - mirror symmetry through beads, no symmetry, 120 degree symmetry (3 each)
  For 2 different kinds of beads, 33, for at most 2, 36.
  
  rrrrgb rrrgrb rrgrrb - 3 - 9 - no symmetry, no symmetry, mirror symmetry through beads (3 each)
  rrrggb rrgrgb rgrrgb grrrgb rrggrb rgrgrb - 6 - 36 - no symmetry, no symmetry, no symmetry, mirror symmetry through beads, no symmetry, mirror symmetry through beads (6 each)
  rrggbb - 1 - 1 - no symmetry
  rgrgbb rggrbb - 2 - 6 - no symmetry, mirror symmetry through edge
  rgrbgb - 1 - 3 - mirror symmetry through beads
  rgbrgb - 1 - 1 - 180 degree symmetry

 

[Demystifier]

1. Extend the following to a valid equation, using only mathematical symbols!

Example: $1\; 2\; 3 \;=\; 1 \longrightarrow - (1 \cdot 2) + 3 = 1$. Solutions are of course not unique.

$9\;9\;9\;=\;6$
$8\;8\;8\;=\;6$
$7\;7\;7\;=\;6$
$6\;6\;6\;=\;6$
$5\;5\;5\;=\;6$
$4\;4\;4\;=\;6$
$3\;3\;3\;=\;6$
$2\;2\;2\;=\;6$
$1\;1\;1\;=\;6$
$0\;0\;0\;=\;6$

The easiest way to solve all such problems is to use the successor function $S$ of Peano arithmetic. For instance, the first one can be solved as
$$9-9+9=S(S(S(6)))$$
and the last one
$$S(S(0))+S(S(0))+S(S(0))=6$$

 

[mfb]

If you accept mathematical functions like that, you can also use the Heaviside step function and make it even simpler. $H(9)H(9)H(9)=H(6)$. Works for all combinations of positive integers.

 

[fresh_42]

23. John wants to buy sweets for his party. He has $100 to spend. A box Belgian pralines costs $7, chips cost $3, and for 50 cents he gets a chocolate bar. What does he have to buy, if he wants at least one of each and spend the whole $100 to buy exactly 100 pieces in total?