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of an Ancient Computing Device - Part 2 Hopefully you were able to weigh Hulkus in Part 1 by discovering a systematic method on your own. In Part 1 you had no control over the weights. Here, you get to choose your own weights. In fact, the weight of Godzilla will vary with your choice of weights. Just highlight each zero on the right-hand side, below, and type your own positive integer weight. However, you must choose your values of A through J in nondecreasing order, meaning that your weights do not have to be distinct. Use the Delete key (not the Backspace key) to remove unwanted digits from the weights you enter. The important thing is this: Some choices of weights cannot weigh every integer-weighted object in its range, i.e., less than or equal to the sum of all the weights. If your choice of weights is defective, i.e., if it violates the critical condition taken up in our PDF document (link), Godzilla will offer you friendly notification of this fact. Godzilla's weight will then be set equal to a value that is impossible to weigh given your choice of A through J. You will never be able to make the scale balance in this case. This time, you must do the checking that any letter on the scale appears at most once. As you are aware, Godzilla has always been somewhat irritable and can only tolerate the one friendly reminder you're looking at now.
Original mathematical design © 2003 by Dean Clark |