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LostInParadise's avatar

Anyone solve Will Shortz's two week challenge (see details)?

Asked by LostInParadise (31927points) October 16th, 2017

You can see the challenge here It is about half way down the page under Next Week’s Challenge, which is really a two week challenge. It looked like it would be easy, but it has me stumped.

Here is how I approached it. I simplified things by turning the problem into an addition problem by moving the subtracted quantity to the other side. I also ignored the 2 digit move restriction. I just wanted to find a way of using the digits from 1 to 6 to get two numbers to add to a third.

We can eliminate the possibility of the sum being a 3 digit number. The smallest it could be is 123, which is out of range of any two digit plus one digit number.

We have ab + cd = ef. Assume no carry. a+c = e and b+d = f. a+c+e must be an even number and so must b+d+f. But that would mean the sum of the digits from 1 to 6 is even, which it is not because 1+2+3+4+5+6=21.

Suppose then that there is a carry. The only possibility is that b and d are 6 and 5 and f=1. That leaves 2, 3 and 4. The largest the sum digit e could be is 5, and 3+4=7 is already greater than 5 without the carry.

Shortz said there is no trick in the problem wording. What am I missing?

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