Brainteaser answer
Nov. 2nd, 2010 08:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
torkellSeveral people came up with solutions to yesterday's puzzle that only required moving one matchstick, but only one person found the real answer. For reference, the equation was this:
I + XI = X
And the challenge was to work out what the fewest numbers of moves was required to make a valid equation.
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
delta_mike spotted the obvious solution of moving the second I to the far right, giving I + X = XI (this is the one I tried originally). talismancer came up with a slight variation on this as well.
Bonus marks toomgimsuchadork for the inventive answer of moving the I to create I + XI ≠ X
One guy at work found yet another 1-move solution: I - XI = -X
Of course, this is a trick question and so none of those are correct. The correct answer is none, and bragging rights tothe_s_guy for spotting that.
The solution is to rotate the surface your matchsticks are on (or walk round to the other side of the table), giving X = IX + I which is 10 = 9 + 1 and so is correct.
I actually didn't solve this by working that out - I saw that I could do it with 1 move, mistakenly assumed that it wasn't a trick question (I should have known better by then), and so entered 1 as my answer. When the game rejected it I then entered 0, as if it takes less than 1 move then there's only one possible answer left.
And the challenge was to work out what the fewest numbers of moves was required to make a valid equation.
delta_mike spotted the obvious solution of moving the second I to the far right, giving I + X = XI (this is the one I tried originally). talismancer came up with a slight variation on this as well.Bonus marks to
omgimsuchadork for the inventive answer of moving the I to create I + XI ≠ XOne guy at work found yet another 1-move solution: I - XI = -X
Of course, this is a trick question and so none of those are correct. The correct answer is none, and bragging rights to
the_s_guy for spotting that.The solution is to rotate the surface your matchsticks are on (or walk round to the other side of the table), giving X = IX + I which is 10 = 9 + 1 and so is correct.
I actually didn't solve this by working that out - I saw that I could do it with 1 move, mistakenly assumed that it wasn't a trick question (I should have known better by then), and so entered 1 as my answer. When the game rejected it I then entered 0, as if it takes less than 1 move then there's only one possible answer left.
