number crunch, or number chain generator for excell or libre calc

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neiloneil

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Sep 2, 2019
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I like to do the number crunch puzzles in the sun or telegraph newspaper. Doing so really helps my arithmetic abilities for day to day life. There is also something pleasing about accomplishing a small series of calculations in that particular format.
The puzzles are not available online for some reason, and I dont like buying and wasting paper. do you know a way of replicating these number and operator sequences please?
Maybe something exists already, or maybe, some code could be written by one of you boffins out there. It would be nice to see it in Excel format so I can learn how to edit the chain length and complexity , and print out a sheet of the puzzles easily

they go something like this;

9 + 7 - 3 x 12 x 3 + 18%, square root of this, divided by 6 +21 = ?

The thing with them is , they work out as whole number answers, unlike my example.
 
I have no idea what these puzzles are; you didn't even say which city's Sun or Telegraph you are referring to.

Could you at least show us an actual example, including instructions? (It looks like they are using a mathematically invalid format.)

But I doubt it could be done automatically without programming.
 
Yes, the 30 Second Challenge puzzle is what I was looking for. Thanks.
I'm from the uk. The sun and the Telegraph are 2 of the main national papers, and I did show an example.
Thanks.
I think it could be automated , but it would be too advanced for me.
 
To ensure an integer at each stage, you would have to start at the righmost cell and work backwards.
 
neiloneil said:
I like to do the number crunch puzzles in the sun or telegraph newspaper. Doing so really helps my arithmetic abilities for day to day life. There is also something pleasing about accomplishing a small series of calculations in that particular format.
The puzzles are not available online for some reason, and I dont like buying and wasting paper. do you know a way of replicating these number and operator sequences please?
Maybe something exists already, or maybe, some code could be written by one of you boffins out there. It would be nice to see it in Excel format so I can learn how to edit the chain length and complexity , and print out a sheet of the puzzles easily

they go something like this;

9 + 7 - 3 x 12 x 3 + 18%, square root of this, divided by 6 +21 = ?

The thing with them is , they work out as whole number answers, unlike my example.
Click to expand...
You want to "reverse engineer" a "commercial game". I do not think think that would be "legal".
 
Ok, i must accept it is wrong to want this. i never wanted to break the law. I should improve myself in ways more acceptable to others.
 
Ignore my comment. Working right to left helps keep integer value when dividing but not when multiplying. Working left to right helps when multiplying but not dividing.
I don't know that there would be legal problems. The point of the original post is that there doesn't seem to be any electronic version of the puzzle. Writing your own program would, I think, be the same as if you created your own electronic Suduko puzzle generator.
 
Post #3 inspired me to type "online 30 second challenge" into Google. I found a couple of decent sites in the first few results.

And if you prefer something on your phone then maybe try a similar search on "App Store" or "Google Play" (I have not tried this myself)

I'm not very good at this type of puzzle. Maybe I should practice!
 
In terms of implementing a version of this yourself, then a divide (or square root) might often need to be preceeded by an add or subtract. In other words, some of the links in the chain might actually come in pairs. For example if you have number 8 coming in on the left, and you want to have a "divide by 3" box, then you'd need to preceed this by +1, -2 or similar...

| 8 | add 1 | divide by 3 |
| 8 | subtract 2 | divide by 3 |
 
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