Today’s problems come from what might be the longest-running puzzle column in the history of the printed word.
In 1966, MIT student Allan Gottlieb published his first Puzzle Corner in the MIT Technology Review.
More than half a century later, Gottlieb – who has been a computer science professor at New York University since 1980 – continues to publish Puzzle Corner in every issue.
The column has legendary status among maths puzzle nerds. Most of the problems are too technical for a non-specialist audience but the column always includes a quickie, which he calls the Speed Department. Here are four word-based conundrums I’ve selected from the last decade.
1. What is the numerically largest Roman numeral that is a normal English word?
2. How do you prove literallythat 11 + 2 = 12 + 1?
3. The 9-letter word SPLATTERShas an intriguing property. You can remove a single letter to make an 8-letter word, without rearranging the other letters. You can remove another letter to make a 7-letter word, and then a 6-letter word, and so on down to a single-letter word. At no stage is the order of the letters rearranged.
splatters
splatter
platter
latter
later
late
ate
at
a
Find two other 9-letter words that share the same property. As a (kosher) hint, the words pig andsin appear as the 3-letter words. (Remember: at no stage do you ever change the order of the letters.)
4. What is special about 8,549,176,320?
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/feb/10/can-you-solve-it-are-you-smart-enough-for-mit
