Le Monde puzzle [#1130]

A two-player game as Le weekly Monde current mathematical puzzle:

Abishag and Caleb fill in alternance a row of N boxes in a row by picking one then two then three &tc. consecutive boxes. When a player is unable to find enough consecutive boxes, the player has lost. Who is winning when N=29? When N=30?

Using a basic recursive search for the optimal strategy, with the status of the row and the number of required boxes as entries,

f<-function(b=!1:N,r=0){
  for(i in 1:(N-r)){
    if(p<-!max(b[j<-i+r:0])){
      q=b;q[j]=1
      if(p<-!f(q,r+1))break}}
  p}

returns Abishag as the winner for N=29 (as well as for N=1,2,7,…,13,19,…,29) and Caleb as the winner for N=30 (as well as for N=3,…,6,14,…,18). I am actually surprised that the recursion operates that deep, even though this means a √N depth for the recursion. While the code took too long to complete, the function operates for N=100. A side phenomenon is the apparent special case of N=47, which makes Abishag the looser, while N=46 and N=48 do not.This is an unusual pattern as otherwise (up to N=59), there are longer and longer stretches of adjacent wins and looses as N increases.

Le Monde puzzle [#1115]

A two-person game as Le weekly Monde current mathematical puzzle:

Two players Amaruq and Atiqtalik are in a game with n tokens where Amaruq chooses a number 1<A<10 and then Atiqtalik chooses a different 1<B<10, and then each in her turn takes either 1, A or B tokens out of the pile.The player taking the last token wins. If n=150, who between Amaruq and Atiqtalik win if both are acting in an optimal manner? Same question for n=210.

The run of a brute force R code like

B=rep(-1,200);B[1:9]=1
for (i in 10:200){
    v=matrix(-2,9,9)
    for (b in 2:9){
       for (a in (2:9)[-b+1])
       for (d in c(1,a,b)){
        e=i-d-c(1,a,b)
        if (max(!e)){v[a,b]=max(-1,v[a,b])}else{
         if (max(e)>0) v[a,b]=max(v[a,b],min(B[e[which(e>0)]]))}}
     B[i]=max(B[i],min(v[v[,b]>-2,b]))}

always produces 1’s in B, which means the first player wins no matter… I thus found out (from the published solution) that my interpretation of the game rules were wrong. The values A and B are fixed once for all and each player only has the choice between withdrawing 1, A, and B on her turn. With the following code showing that Amaruq looses both times.

B=rep(1,210)
for(b in(2:9))
 for(a in(2:9)[-b+1])
  for(i in(2:210)){
   be=-2
   for(d in c(1,a,b)){
    if (d==i){best=1}else{
      e=i-d-c(1,a,b)
      if (max(!e)){be=max(-1,be)}else{
       if (max(e)>0)be=max(be,min(B[e[which(e>0)]]))}}}
   B[i]=be}

Le Monde puzzle [#1105]

Another token game as Le Monde mathematical puzzle:

Archibald and Beatrix play with a pile of n>100 tokens, sequentially picking m tokens from the pile with m being a prime number [including m=1] or a multiple of 6, the winner taking the last tokens. If Beatrix knows n and proposes to Archibald to start, what is the value of n?

Which cannot be solved in a few lines of R code:

k<-function(n)n<4||all(n%%2:ceiling(sqrt(n))!=0)||!n%%6
g=(1:3)
n=c(4,i<-4)
while(max(n)<101){
  if(k(i)) g=c(g,i) else{
  while(i%in%g)i=i+1;j=4;o=!j
  while(!o&(j<i)){ 
    o=(j%in%n)&k(i-j);j=j+1}
  if(o) g=c(g,i) else n=c(n,i)}
  i=i+1}

since it returned no unsuccessful value above 100! With 4, 8, 85, 95, and 99 as predecessors. A rather surprising outcome and a big gap that most certainly has a straightforward explanation! Or a lack of understanding from yours truly: this post appears after the solution was published in Le Monde and I am more bemused than ever since the losing numbers in the journal are given as 4, 8, 85, … 89, and 129. With the slight hiccup that 89 is a prime number…. The other argument in the solution that there can only be five such losers is well-taken since there are only five possible non-zero remainders in the division by 6.

Le Monde puzzle [#1071]

A “he said she said” Le Monde mathematical puzzle sixth competition problem that reminded me of the “Singapore birthday problem” (nothing to do with the original birthday problem!):

Arwen and Brandwein are privately and respectively given the day and month of Caradoc’s birthday [in the Gregorian calendar] with the information that the month number is at least the day number. Arwen starts by stating she knows Brandwein cannot deduce the birthday, followed by Brandwein who says the same about Arwen. If this “she says he says” goes on for the largest possible number of steps before Arwen says she knows, when is Caradoc’s birthday? Arwen and Brandwein are later given two numbers corresponding to Deirdre’s birthday with no indication of which one is the day and which one is the month. They know both numbers end up with the same digit and that the month number is strictly less than the day number. Arwen states she does not know the date and she knows Brandwein cannot know either. Then Brandwein says he indeed does not the date but he knows whether he got the day or the month. This prompts Arwen to conclude she knows, then Brandwein to do the same. When is Deirdre’s birthday?

Since this was a fairly easy puzzle (and since I had spent too much time debugging the previous R code!), I did not try coding this one but instead drew the possibilities and remove the impossibilities on a blackboard. The first question is quite simple actually since the day numbers stand between 1 and 12 and that each “I cannot know” excludes one of the remaining endpoints, removing first excludes 1 from both lists, then 12, then 2, then …. 8, ending up with 7. And 07/07 as Caradoc’s birthday. The second case sees 13,…,20,23,…,30 eliminated from Arwen’s numbers, then 3,…,10 as well, which eliminates the same numbers from Brandwein’s possibilities. That he knows whether it is a month or a day leaves only 1,2,21,22,31 as possible numbers. Then Arwen’s certainty reduces her numbers to be 2, 21, 22, or 31, and since Brandwein is also sure, the only possible cases are (2,22) and (22,2). Meaning Deirdre’s birthday is on 22/02. I dunno if this symmetry was to be expected! (And I cannot fathom why this puzzle is awarded so many points, when compared with the others.)

Le Monde puzzle [#1067]

The second Le Monde mathematical puzzle in the new competition is sheer trigonometry:

When in the above figures both triangles ABC are isosceles and the brown segments are all of length 25cm, find the angle in A and the value of DC², respectively.

This could have been solved by R coding the various possible angles of the three segments beyond BC until the isosceles property is met, but it went much faster by pen and paper, leading to an angle of π/9 in the first case and a square of 1250 in the second case. The third puzzle is basic arithmetic that only seems solvable by enumeration…