In a world where technology has dominated our lives and made most things within our grasp, it’s easy to forget about the power of the human brain. But what if we could combine technology with the human mind to create something truly unique and challenging? This is where “Can u solve it? Wordplay meets numberplay” comes in – the ultimate brain-teasing game experience that combines the power of mathematics, word puzzles, and logic. This article delves into the exciting world of this game and explores the benefits of combining technology with the human mind to create a unique and challenging experience.
Alex Bellos’s Monday puzzle
Mathematical rules for writing
Today’s puzzles honor the relationship between mathematics and literature.
They also celebrate the release of
Once Upon a Prime
,
an exceptional new book on this subject by Sarah Hart, a math professor at Birkbeck, University of London.
(One of the puzzles below provides a chance to win a copy.)
Once Upon a Prime contains a section on constrained writing, which involves applying mathematical rules to written text, and serves as the theme for today’s challenges.
1. Pop art
Below, you will find five sentences with spaces and vowels omitted. Your objective is to add in the appropriate vowels and spaces to recreate the phrases. Each sentence features just one vowel. The five vowels, A, E, I, O, and U, comprise one sentence each. To make the task simpler, each sentence includes the name of both a pop star and a well-known artist and could easily be a headline in a newspaper.
a) C H R G T S V R M R S K T C H
b) D M B S T R C K L L S C F F S M N C H
c) L D Y G G B G S C H G L L
d) S N P D G G S H W S T W R T H K W R K S
e) W L L S M T H S G N S H S K L M T P R N T
2. Creative curbs
Each of the following sentences is written according to a different mathematical constraint, such as a rule that states all words must be of equal length or that no Es are allowed. Can you figure out what each constraint is?
1) I do not know where family doctors acquired illegibly perplexing handwriting.
2) Pert Pete wrote “QWERTY”. Wry Rory wept. Quiet Tori quit.
3) Dennis, Nell, Edna, Leon, Anita, Rolf, Nora, Alice, Carol, Lora, Cecil, Aaron, Flora, Tina, Noel and Ellen sinned.
4) Shimmering, gleaming, glistening glow
Winter reigns, splendiferous snow!
Won’t this sight, this stainless scene,
Endlessly yield days supreme?
Eying ground, deep piled, delights
Skiers scaling garish heights.
(Note: These six lines are taken from “Winter Reigns,” a poem written by Mary Youngquist, the first woman to earn an MIT Ph.D. in organic chemistry and later editor of the U.S. National Puzzler’s League newsletter. It conceals an extremely straightforward constraint.)
3. Pilish, please (plus ‘Pon Prime prize)
Pilish is a type of constrained writing where the word lengths are determined by the mathematical constant pi, which starts with 3.1415926535… (Essentially, the first word must consist of three letters, the second of one letter, the third of four letters, the fourth of one letter, etc.)
Perhaps the most well-known Pilish phrase is:
How I want a drink, alcoholic of course, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics
,
attributed to the physicist Sir James Jeans. The most extensive Pilish text is
Cadaiec Cadenza
,
a narrative poem in the style of Edgar Allen Poe that runs for almost 100 lines and was composed by Mike Keith.
