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
- eliminate
- times
- 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
- broken
- case
- code
- contradicts
- eliminate
- hand
- list
- meaning
- number
- option
- override
- statement
- sum
- sums
- times
- ways