Comments on Number string puzzle

Go to MathematicsAdd a commentGo to Number string puzzle

Re: Couldn't figure this out in a reasonable amount of time..
Ahh.  I guess that you presumed that when I said "differ by" I implied which digit was larger.

This is not the case.

When I say that 5 and 3 differ by 2, I do not mean to imply which order to do the subtraction in.

Both pairs, (5,3) and (5,7) have a difference of 2.

5 and 3 differ by 2.
5 and 7 differ by 2.

This gives more choices for possible numbers to try, but makes sure that there exist at least one positive solution.

Kermit


posted by Kermit1941 on September 25, 2011 at 10:00 PM | link to this | reply

Couldn't figure this out in a reasonable amount of time..
but I'm pretty sure it's a negative number

posted by Afzal_Sunny7 on September 23, 2011 at 9:45 PM | link to this | reply