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Carol's Birthday (Posted on 2011-04-26) Difficulty: 3 of 5
Alice, Becky and Carol all have their birthdays in December, and they decided to form as many numbers as they could as the sum of non-negative multiples of their birth dates of the month. Alice and Becky were born on the 19th and 21st of December respectively. What date in December was Carol born on if 188 is the highest number that could not be formed by summing non-negative multiples of their birthdates?

  Submitted by Charlie    
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Solution: (Hide)
Only 19, 21 and 23 would fail to be able to produce 188, so it must be one of these. The table shows one set of coefficients that works to produce 188, for each possible date of Carol's birth.

 188:
             coefficient of
  c           19 21   c
  1            0  0  188
  2            0  0   94
  3            2  0   50
  4            0  0   47
  5            0  3   25
  6            2  0   25
  7            4  0   16
  8            0  4   13
  9            2  2   12
 10            0  8    2
 11            1  7    2
 12            2  2    9
 13            0  4    8
 14            4  0    8
 15            2  0   10
 16            1  5    4
 17            1  4    5
 18            2  2    6
 19
 20            0  8    1
 21
 22            1  7    1
 23
 24            2  6    1
 25            0  3    5
 26            0  4    4
 27            2  2    4
 28            4  0    4
 29            2  3    3
 30            2  0    5
 31            0  6    2

Any date for Carol's birth would allow 189 to be formed:

189:

 c           19 21   c
 1            0  0  189
 2            0  1   84
 3            0  0   63
 4            0  1   42
 5            0  4   21
 6            0  1   28
 7            0  0   27
 8            0  1   21
 9            0  0   21
10            0  9    0
11            0  9    0
12            0  1   14
13            0  9    0
14            0  1   12
15            0  4    7
16            0  9    0
17            0  9    0
18            0  3    7
19            0  9    0
20            0  9    0
21            0  0    9
22            0  9    0
23            0  9    0
24            0  1    7
25            0  9    0
26            0  9    0
27            0  0    7
28            0  1    6
29            0  9    0
30            0  9    0
31            0  9    0

However, 19 and 21, which, by the way, repeat Alice or Becky's birthday, fail to allow 191 to be formed:


 191:
  c           19 21   c 
  1 :          0  0  191
  2 :          0  1   85
  3 :          2  0   51
  4 :          0  3   32
  5 :          0  1   34
  6 :          2  1   22
  7 :          6  0   11
  8 :          0  3   16
  9 :          2  0   17
 10 :          0  1   17
 11 :          0  7    4
 12 :          2  1   11
 13 :          0  6    5
 14 :          6  1    4
 15 :          2  3    6
 16 :          0  3    8
 17 :          0  1   10
 18 :          2  3    5
 19 :
 20 :          9  0    1
 21 :
 22 :          0  7    2
 23 :          0  8    1
 24 :          2  5    2
 25 :          1  7    1
 26 :          1  2    5
 27 :          2  6    1
 28 :          6  1    2
 29 :          3  5    1
 30 :          2  3    3
 31 :          4  4    1

That leaves 23 as the only possible date for Carol's birthday.

From Enigma No. 1635, "Marty's date", by Gwen Owen, New Scientist 26 February 2011, page 29.

Comments: ( You must be logged in to post comments.)
  Subject Author Date
possible solutionbroll2011-04-26 12:59:17
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