full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Alex Rosenthal: Can you solve the rogue submarine riddle? Difficulty level Master

Unscramble the Blue Letters

What if A’s number was 5? That could be from 1+4 or 2+3, in which case B would have either 4 or 6. 4 would tell B what A had, like he said, because there’s only one option to make the product: 4 teims 1. 6, on the other hand, could be breokn down three ways, which sum like so. 7 isn’t on B’s list of possible sums, but 5 and 6 both are. Meaning that B wouldn’t know whether A’s number was 5 or 6, and we can etiilmnae this option because it contradicts his statement. So this is great— 5 and 4 could be the override code, but how do we know it's the only one?

Open Cloze

What if A’s number was 5? That could be from 1+4 or 2+3, in which case B would have either 4 or 6. 4 would tell B what A had, like he said, because there’s only one option to make the product: 4 _____ 1. 6, on the other hand, could be ______ down three ways, which sum like so. 7 isn’t on B’s list of possible sums, but 5 and 6 both are. Meaning that B wouldn’t know whether A’s number was 5 or 6, and we can _________ this option because it contradicts his statement. So this is great— 5 and 4 could be the override code, but how do we know it's the only one?

Solution

  1. eliminate
  2. times
  3. broken

Original Text

What if A’s number was 5? That could be from 1+4 or 2+3, in which case B would have either 4 or 6. 4 would tell B what A had, like he said, because there’s only one option to make the product: 4 times 1. 6, on the other hand, could be broken down three ways, which sum like so. 7 isn’t on B’s list of possible sums, but 5 and 6 both are. Meaning that B wouldn’t know whether A’s number was 5 or 6, and we can eliminate this option because it contradicts his statement. So this is great— 5 and 4 could be the override code, but how do we know it's the only one?

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

Important Words

  1. broken
  2. case
  3. code
  4. contradicts
  5. eliminate
  6. hand
  7. list
  8. meaning
  9. number
  10. option
  11. override
  12. statement
  13. sum
  14. sums
  15. times
  16. ways