Puzzles – Quanta Magazine https://www.quantamagazine.org Illuminating science Mon, 16 Sep 2024 14:10:47 -0400 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2 Quanta Relaunches Hyperjumps Math Game https://www.quantamagazine.org/quanta-relaunches-hyperjumps-math-game-20240216/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/quanta-relaunches-hyperjumps-math-game-20240216/#respond Fri, 16 Feb 2024 15:22:22 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=134922 The post Quanta Relaunches Hyperjumps Math Game first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> It’s the year 2718. Humanity has invented a warp drive that enables a spacecraft to hyperjump to distant solar systems and back to Earth. The drive promises to revolutionize space exploration. But there’s a catch. The new technology can only make hyperjumps that follow the basic rules of arithmetic. Earth’s governing body has tapped you, an adventurous math explorer, to captain the first warp...

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/quanta-relaunches-hyperjumps-math-game-20240216/feed/ 0 Hyperjumps Math Game https://www.quantamagazine.org/hyperjumps-math-game-20240216/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/hyperjumps-math-game-20240216/#respond Fri, 16 Feb 2024 15:21:16 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=134981 The post Hyperjumps Math Game first appeared on Quanta Magazine

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/hyperjumps-math-game-20240216/feed/ 0 The Math Behind Wordle Guesses https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-math-behind-wordle-guesses-20221202/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-math-behind-wordle-guesses-20221202/#respond Fri, 02 Dec 2022 14:42:56 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=121100 The post The Math Behind Wordle Guesses first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> In the simple game of Wordle, players have to guess a secret five-letter word in six or fewer turns based on clues about the presence and location of letters revealed by their previous guesses. While somewhat similar games have appeared in the past, everyone who plays Wordle on a particular day has to discover the same secret word, making it easy to share your attempts and discuss the game among...

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-math-behind-wordle-guesses-20221202/feed/ 0 How to Win at Wordle (Without Cheating) https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-to-win-at-wordle-without-cheating-20221025/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-to-win-at-wordle-without-cheating-20221025/#respond Tue, 25 Oct 2022 14:00:18 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=120040 The post How to Win at Wordle (Without Cheating) first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> Wordle has fast become a modern classic played by millions. As a puzzle enthusiast, I feel as thrilled by it as an astronomer seeing a visible supernova. Only twice before have I felt and seen such widespread excitement about a puzzle: first, early in life, when I encountered Scrabble and crosswords, and later during the Rubik’s Cube craze of the 1980s. Today we’ll explore this modern supernova of...

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-to-win-at-wordle-without-cheating-20221025/feed/ 0 How Star Trek’s Lieutenant Uhura Overcame Astronomical Odds https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-star-treks-lieutenant-uhura-overcame-astronomical-odds-20220930/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-star-treks-lieutenant-uhura-overcame-astronomical-odds-20220930/#respond Fri, 30 Sep 2022 13:26:28 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=119316 Star Trek crew from a probabilistic predicament armed only with the power of mathematical reasoning.

The post How Star Trek’s Lieutenant Uhura Overcame Astronomical Odds first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> Our puzzle task last month was to save a Star Trek surface party of eight led by the Enterprise Communications Officer Lieutenant Uhura (played by the late Nichelle Nichols). The crew is imprisoned by an alien race, the Catenati, on a planet in the Necklace Nebula. To escape, they have to maximize their probability of performing a task that at first seems to offer only a dismal probability of...

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