A Quick Puzzle to Test Your Problem Solving

[Liberal_in_LA]

A Quick Puzzle to Test
Your Problem Solving
By DAVID LEONHARDT and YOU JULY 2, 2015

A short game sheds light on government policy, corporate America and why no one likes to be wrong.

Here’s how it works:

We’ve chosen a rule that some sequences of three numbers obey — and some do not. Your job is to guess what the rule is.

We’ll start by telling you that the sequence 2, 4, 8 obeys the rule:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/03/upshot/a-quick-puzzle-to-test-your-problem-solving.html?abt=0002&abg=1

[Make7]

1. I guessed correctly without entering a single sequence.

I've seen that puzzle before.

ETA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=0&v=vKA4w2O61Xo   (4:44)

[petronius]

2. That was interesting! I got it right, but I spent a chunk of time

testing a more complicated rule (and then I did try to rationalize and define some limits to explain why my rule failed, before admitting that it was just wrong... )

[SusanCalvin]

3. That is very interesting.

I did get two "no's" before I guessed incorrectly, but the "no's" were to test an assumption I made. And we all know what they say about assuming.....

[Maedhros]

4. Simple example from my Sequences and Series class...

Nicely played, New York Times.

[Liberal_in_LA]

5. lol. yeah. I assumed it was doubling series

[SusanCalvin]

8. Same here.

I did test starting with zero and then starting with a negative number, but I did not draw the correct conclusion from that - I just added a condition as to the nature of the starting number.

Oh well, I've never really been into puzzles of this sort. I do fondly hope that I have no strong objection to being proved wrong, though.

[JoePhilly]

6. Took nine passes to get it.

Started with x2.

Then tried a few in reverse.

Then simple increases.

1, 2, 3 then 3, 4 ,5.

Done

[malaise]

7. Got it right

Very interesting

[Solly Mack]

9. I can be achingly negative so

Last edited Sat Jul 4, 2015, 01:04 AM - Edit history (2)

Yeah, I got it right.

Teehee. I slay me.

[Aerows]

10. That was stupid

The obvious answer was exponents of prime numbers and 3 was the next in the series.

[petronius]

13. That's what I thought at first, but what it really is is that the count of unique

letters in the English spelling of each sequential number increases by one, and the numbers themselves must differ by more than 1. The next in the series is obviously 13...

[Jamaal510]

11. 2nd number is twice the first number,

and 3rd number is twice the 2nd number and four times the 1st number.

[Liberal_in_LA]

14. yeah but click on the answer. there is a simpler pattern

[dsc]

12. I got it right with 9 tries

and 2 nos. I expect a third no but didn't get it. I could have avoid a few of my yesses but I was looking for a more difficult pattern, or at least one with more rules, than the one that turned out to be correct.