{"id":4108,"date":"2019-01-10T08:18:19","date_gmt":"2019-01-10T16:18:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/milloyd\/?p=4108"},"modified":"2019-01-10T08:18:19","modified_gmt":"2019-01-10T16:18:19","slug":"happy-new-year-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/milloyd\/2019\/01\/10\/happy-new-year-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy New Year 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Children in in Changzhou, China, line up to form characters \u20182019\u2019 during a performance to welcome the new year. Photograph: VCG\/VCG via Getty Images (and The Guardian)<\/p><\/div>\n

The UK newspaper, The Guardian, <\/em>hosts a Monday puzzle column by Alex Bellos, and we have been trying out his first set of puzzles for the new year all based on 2019 & its digits. We’ll share some of our solutions, mathematical musings, and some of the questions that these puzzles brought to mind in the comments. Please feel free to add your own.<\/p>\n

1) Date jam<\/strong><\/p>\n

(i) Using each of the digits 2, 0, 1 and 9, exactly once, create expressions that equal all of the numbers from 0 to 12. The expressions can include any of the arithmetical symbols +, \u2013, x, \u00f7 and \u221a, and brackets. [For example, 0 x (2 + 1 + 9) = 0]<\/p>\n

(ii) Create expressions using 2, 0, 1 and 9 for all the numbers from 13 to 20. Again each number must be used once and only once in each expression, but as well as the operators mentioned above you can now use concatenation to make two-digit numbers (e.g. 2 and a 0 can concatenate to 20) and exponentiation (meaning that one number can be the power of another, such as 19<\/sup>)<\/p>\n

2) Countdown conundrum<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fill the blanks in the following equation, so that it makes arithmetical sense:<\/p>\n

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 = 2019<\/p>\n

You are allowed to use any of the basic mathematical operations, +, \u2013, x, \u00f7, and as many brackets as you like. An answer might look something like (10 \u2013 9 + 8) x (7 \u2013 6 \u2013 5)\u00f7(4 + 3 + 2 + 1) = 2019, but not this one since the equation is incorrect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The UK newspaper, The Guardian, hosts a Monday puzzle column by Alex Bellos, and we have been trying out his first set of puzzles for the new year all based on 2019 & its digits. We’ll share some of our solutions, mathematical … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/milloyd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4108"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/milloyd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/milloyd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/milloyd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/milloyd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4108"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/milloyd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4109,"href":"https:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/milloyd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4108\/revisions\/4109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/milloyd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/milloyd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/milloyd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}