Monthly Archives: December 2014

Examples

Triangle Sum Puzzle

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This is probably a consequence of being a mathematician, but I have always enjoyed number puzzles. I think that there is a general simplicity and universality in numbers that are not present in things like word puzzles, where the ability to reach a solution can be limited to the vocabulary of the user.

The fact that these are puzzles and not simply homework exercises also helps because we often find people sharing difficulties and successes stories over the water cooler or at the lunch table. The fact that many of these math puzzles can teach some of the same concepts as homework problems (in a more fun and inclusive way) is generally lost on the user as their primary interest is generally on solving the puzzle in front of them, or sometimes solving the more general form of the puzzle.

Today’s post is about a puzzle that was originally shared with me over a lunch table by a friend who thought it was an interesting problem and asked what I thought about it. I didn’t give the puzzle much further thought (he had correctly solved the puzzle) until I saw it again in “Algorithmic Puzzles” by Anany Levitin and Maria Levitin. It was then that I thought about the more general form of the puzzle, derived a solution for the problem, and decided to code it up as a script for my site.

Below is a link to the puzzle:

We have a set of random numbers arranged in a triangle and the question is to find the path of maximum sum from the root node (the top node) to the base (one of the nodes on the bottom row) with the rules that
(1) Exactly one number must be selected from each row
(2) A number can only be selected from a row if (a) it is the root node or (b) one of the two nodes above it has been selected.

For the sample
So for the sample problem in the picture, the maximal path would go through nodes 57, 99, 34, 95, and 27.

For more of these puzzles check out the script I write here and be sure to let me know what you think.

Blog, Examples

The Bridge Crossing Problem

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Most puzzles are fun in their own right. Some puzzles are so fun that they have the added benefit that they are likely to come up in unexpected places, like maybe in a job interview. I was recently reading a paper by Günter Rote entitled “Crossing the Bridge at Night” where Rote analyzes such a puzzle. Upon finishing the paper, I decided to write a script so that users could see the general form of this puzzle.

The problem can be stated as follows: There is a set of people, lets make the set finite by saying that there are exactly n people, who wish to cross a bridge at night. There are a few restrictions that make crossing this bridge somewhat complicated.

  • Each person has a travel time across the bridge.
  • No more than two people can cross the bridge at one time.
  • If two people are on the bridge together, they must travel at the pace of the slower person.
  • There is only one flashlight and no party (of one or two people) can travel across the bridge without the flashlight.
  • The flashlight cannot be thrown across the bridge, and nobody can go to the store to purchase another flashlight

The image above shows the optimal solution when the 4 people have travel times of 1, 2, 5, and 10. The script I have written allows users to work with different numbers of people with random travel times. Give it a try and see if you can spot the patterns in the solution.