Alphabet Soup
Problem
This challenge is to make up YOUR OWN word-arithmetic challenge.
Each letter represents a digit and where the same letter appears more than once it must represent the same digit each time.
The hard part is to make up some message rather than just using any old letters. Send in your word-arithmetic challenge, together with at least one solution to it.
Another challenge is to discover if the puzzle has just one solution or many. Here are two easy examples; they are just addition sums and you may be more inventive and make up subtractions, multiplications or divisions:
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Lastly, can you prove that
N | R | I | C | H | |
+ | M | A | T | H | S |
S | T | A | R | S |
cannot be made to work?
Student Solutions
Keep sending us YOUR OWN alphanumerics and we'll publish them in collections from time to time. The following two came from Jonathan Gill, St Peter's College, Adelaide, Australia.
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There is a one-to-one correspondence between digits and letters, each letter stands for a single digit and each digit is represented by a single letter. How many different solutions can you find?
Ling Xiang Ning(Allan) form Tao Nan School, Singapore, who solves many of are hardest problems, has sent 7 solutions to CARAVAN and 88 solutions to AUSTRALIAN. Is this all there are? Here is one solution to each.
76 | 968 | |
+86 | +529 | |
---- | ---- | |
162 | 1497 |
Soh Yong Sheng, age 12, also from Tao Nan School, Singapore has sent this solution for.
NRICH | + | STARS | = | MATHS |
17230 | + | 48574 | = | 65804 |
and there are al lot more.
We have the following solutions from Allan Ling (Tao Nan School, Singapore): For the equation
M | A | T | H | |
+ | E | M | A | T |
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I | C | A | L |
T has to be 9 or 0, in order for it to satisfy T+A=A. However if T=0, it is impossible, as H+0 is not L. So T has to be 9.
The following are the possible sums (total 59):
4891 | 5791 | 4791 | 2591 | 3491 | 2491 | 2491 |
+2489 | +2579 | +3479 | +4259 | +2349 | +6249 | +3249 |
7380 | 8370 | 8270 | 6850 | 5840 | 8740 | 5740 |
4391 | 2391 | 3291 | 3291 | 3692 | 4592 | 5092 |
+2439 | +5239 | +5329 | +4329 | +4369 | +3459 | +3509 |
6830 | 7630 | 8620 | 7620 | 8061 | 8051 | 8601 |
4092 | 3092 | 5893 | 1893 | 2793 | 1893 | 2793 |
+3409 | +5309 | +1589 | +4189 | +5279 | +5189 | +1279 |
7501 | 8401 | 7482 | 6082 | 8072 | 7082 | 4072 |
1693 | 4593 | 5493 | 2493 | 1493 | 6093 | 1894 |
+4169 | +1459 | +1549 | +6249 | +7149 | +2609 | +5189 |
5862 | 6052 | 7042 | 8742 | 8642 | 8702 | 7083 |
3794 | 2794 | 6594 | 5294 | 1094 | 1094 | 1094 |
+2379 | +5279 | +1659 | +1529 | +7109 | +6109 | +5109 |
6173 | 8073 | 8253 | 6823 | 8203 | 7203 | 6203 |
4795 | 4795 | 3795 | 2795 | 1695 | 1095 | 1095 |
+3479 | +1479 | +2379 | +3279 | +2169 | +7109 | +6109 |
8274 | 6274 | 6174 | 6074 | 3864 | 8204 | 7204 |
1896 | 2496 | 1296 | 1096 | 1096 | 2197 | 1097 |
+2189 | +1249 | +7129 | +7109 | +3109 | +3219 | +4109 |
4085 | 3745 | 8425 | 8205 | 4205 | 5416 | 5206 |
1097 | 1498 | 3298 | 1298 | 2198 | 4098 | 3098 |
+3109 | +2149 | +1329 | +5129 | +3219 | +2409 | +2309 |
4206 | 3647 | 4627 | 6427 | 5417 | 6507 | 5407 |
2098 | 1098 | 1098 | 1098 | |||
+4209 | +5109 | +4109 | +3109 | |||
6307 | 6207 | 5207 | 4207 | |||
Jonathan also proved that the following alphanumeric does not work, that is it cannot have any solutions. Well done Jonathan.
N | R | I | C | H | |
+ | M | A | T | H | S |
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S | T | A | R | S |
If it was an alphanumerics then H = 0 to satisfy 0 + S = S, but then H cannot be zero, otherwise C + 0 (H) = C and not R. We know that C and R cannot both represent the same number therefore
N | R | I | C | H | |
+ | M | A | T | H | S |
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S | T | A | R | S |
cannot be made into an alphanumeric.