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Vicious Circle (Posted on 2007-01-17) Difficulty: 3 of 5
Joe's latest puzzle for Penny consists of nine consecutively numbered pegs and a disc with 10 holes. The disc is free to rotate about its center.

The top position of the circle at any given time is marked by a fixed arrow pointer. A peg may be inserted in the disc in an empty hole adjacent to the arrow. If that hole isn't empty, she can't continue placing pegs.

The pegs are numbered, and after each one is placed, the disc is rotated that many positions clockwise. Penny has succeeded in placing all the pegs in the holes on the disc and has left an empty spot at the top adjacent to the arrow pointer, as shown in the following diagram. I've marked the empty spot that remains, with a hyphen:


                 |
                 V

                 -

       1                   9



 z                               x





 7                               2



       3                   8

                 y
                 

But Penny doesn't remember in which of the positions marked x, y and z were the 4, 5 and 6 at the end of the game.

In what order did Penny place the pegs?

See The Solution Submitted by Charlie    
Rating: 5.0000 (1 votes)

Comments: ( Back to comment list | You must be logged in to post comments.)
Puzzle Thoughts Comment 3 of 3 |
placement   final pos
            | 
            V
56148       63 4159728
56841       694285371
61485        952863741
65841        942863715
where the left set of numbers

The first two rows leave a 6 at the top, rather than a blank. Only the third line matches the numbered positions, and so the sequence of placed pegs was 6, 1, 4, 8, 3, 2, 9, 5, 7 (since 8 represents 8329, and 7 is understood at the end). By the way, x=5, y=6 and z=4, shown in positions on the right side of line 3.


Edited on July 16, 2023, 2:52 am

Edited on July 16, 2023, 2:53 am
  Posted by K Sengupta on 2023-07-16 02:52:13

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