Group 1: A, C, I, L, M, O, R, P, S
Group 2: E, L, N, O, P, R, S, T, V
Group 3: E, G, H, M, N, S, U, V, Y
Group 4: A, C, I, J, M, N, O, R, S
Group 5: A, B, D, I, P, R, S, U, W
Group 6: C, D, G, I, L, M, N, S, T
Group 7: A, B, D, E, H, I, O, P, T
Group 8: E, F, H, L, M, N, O, S, T
Group 9: B, C, D, E, L, M, N, R, T

Choose precisely one letter from each group in order to form nine-letter math words. How many words can you find?

Notes:

(i) The letters must be chosen in order. That is, the first letter must be chosen from the first group, the second letter must be chosen from the second group, the third letter from the third group, .... and, so on. However, there is no restriction as to which letter is chosen from a given group.

(ii) Plurals, proper nouns, acronyms, abbreviations, hyphens or spaces are not allowed.

DATA  ACILMORPS
DATA  ELNOPRSTV
DATA  EGHMNSUVY
DATA  ACIJMNORS
DATA  ABDIPRSUW
DATA  CDGILMNST
DATA  ABDEHIOPT
DATA  EFHLMNOST
DATA  BCDELMNRT

OPEN "\words\words9.txt" FOR BINARY AS #1
w$ = SPACE$(9)

DO
  GET #1, , w$
  w$ = UCASE$(w$)
  IF EOF(1) THEN EXIT DO
  RESTORE
  good = 1
  FOR i = 1 TO 9
    READ s$
    IF INSTR(s$, MID$(w$, i, 1)) = 0 THEN good = 0: EXIT FOR
  NEXT
  IF good THEN PRINT w$; " ";
LOOP
CLOSE

The results are shown below.  All were manually changed to lower case, but the ones with mathematical meaning were re-uppercased manually.

ALGORITHM aluminate assailant assaulted assaulter assistant ASYMPTOTE cessation
clumpiest clumsiest coenacted cognation cognition cohabited commanded commander
committed committee communion communise communism communist commutate concisest
concision conjugant CONJUGATE consisted consulate consulted consulter consultor
COVARIANT creasiest cremation crenation crenulate crumbiest crumblier crumplier
inearthed inhabited inhabiter inhibited inhibitor INSCRIBED inscriber insculped
insistent INVARIANT invisible ITERATION legislate LOGARITHM memoriter menadione
mescaline mesoscale messaline monoamine monoplane monostele mosaicism mosaicist
operagoer OPERATION overacted overplant overplied overscale overstate oversteer
pegmatite pessimism pessimist plenished pluralism pluralist precisest PRECISION
prenumber president pteridine reemitted reenacted regardant regranted REMAINDER
remission remoisten remounted renascent rescinded rescinder resistant resounded
revisited sensation sensitise spearmint speculate spymaster steadiest sterilant
stumpiest sturdiest

One might think that "conjugant" had a mathematical meaning related to "conjugate", but it's only a biological term. Also "commutate" is in use regarding electronics, as the mathematical term would be "commute".

Posted by Charlie on 2012-06-15 13:59:16