In one of the 3rd world countries two natives C. and K. encountered a visiting philanthropist who proposed the following offer:
What would you prefer to own: a
coconut plantation or a patented technology (a.k.a.
knowhow) to produce canned food from all such plantations in your country?
Assume that money-wise both offers are equal.
C. replied - coconut and K. choose the knowhow.
The philantropist then gave both of them two hours to solve the following alphametics :
i: WHATDO+YOUWANT=COCONUTS
ii: WHATDO+YOUWANT=KNOWHOW
You are hired by the natives to help one of them or both(your choice), your dollar fee being 1.6% of the higher summand, 11% of the lower or both,
(provided you submit correct solution(s)before the time expires).
Your time limit is 100 minutes - define your strategy (which alphametic to solve first, software or not etc.) and post both the solution and the amount of time spent,
....starting NOW
Watch out - red herring...
11:27 start developing program
after running it:
At 11:43 appears
809127 3768951 4578078
standing for
WHATDO YOUWANT KNOWHOW
DefDbl A-Z
Dim crlf$
Private Sub Form_Load()
Form1.Visible = True
Text1.Text = ""
crlf = Chr$(13) + Chr$(10)
s$ = "0123456789": hld$ = s
Do
w$ = Val(Mid(s, 1, 1))
h$ = Val(Mid(s, 2, 1))
a$ = Val(Mid(s, 3, 1))
t$ = Val(Mid(s, 4, 1))
d$ = Val(Mid(s, 5, 1))
o$ = Val(Mid(s, 6, 1))
y$ = Val(Mid(s, 7, 1))
u$ = Val(Mid(s, 8, 1))
n$ = Val(Mid(s, 9, 1))
k$ = Val(Mid(s, 10, 1))
whatdo = 100000 * w + 10000 * h + 1000 * a + 100 * t + 10 * d + o
youwant = 1000000 * y + 100000 * o + 10000 * u + 1000 * w + 100 * a + 10 * n + t
knowhow = 1000000 * k + 100000 * n + 10010 * o + 1001 * w + 100 * h
If whatdo + youwant = knowhow Then
Text1.Text = Text1.Text & whatdo & Str(youwant) & Str(knowhow) & crlf
End If
permute s
Loop Until s = hld
Text1.Text = Text1.Text & crlf & " done"
End Sub
Decision to go after KNOWHOW made upon seeing COCONUTS requires two additional unknowns, C and S, after the initial 9, making decimal solution impossible.
Add a couple of minutes for initial perusal, we get 16+2=18 minutes spent writing and running the program. (The permute subroutine, not shown, was copied from another program I wrote and used in several programs, saving some time of course.)
|
|
Posted by Charlie
on 2016-12-28 11:29:28 |
software solution
