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What price glory? (Posted on 2020-08-12) Difficulty: 3 of 5
A drawer is divided into 9 square boxes, creating a 3*3 grid.
Your task is to create a "magic square" by putting a distinct amount of money in each of the boxes in a way that all of the 8 sums (vertical, horizontal and diagonal) will be the same.
Only standard American coins are allowed, i.e. 1,5,10,25,50, and 100c.

What is the minimal amount of coins ?
Show their distribution.

See The Solution Submitted by Ady TZIDON    
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Comments: ( Back to comment list | You must be logged in to post comments.)
A better solution? (Thinking outside the box) | Comment 3 of 5 |
The problem does not say that we need to put coins in every box.
0 cents is arguably an amount of money.
If we are allowed to put 0 cents in one of the boxes, then

Working left to right, top to bottom

Boxes

5    40  15
30  20  10
25   0   35

containing 1+3+2+2+2+1+1+0+2=14 coins.

This is 3 coins less than other solutions, and I doubt that it can be improved upon.

  Posted by Steve Herman on 2020-08-12 23:00:28
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