Question

The Impossible 24 Game???

Asked by: simpsons17371

Today during school I came across a couple of kids trying to figure out one of the cards of "The 24 Game".  This immediately struct me as odd, because being seniors it is very childish to play the game.  If you don't know how it works, the rules are:

1.) Use all numbers once and only once
2.) You can only use the four basic math functions (+ - / *)
3.) Your answer has to turn out to be 24

So as I was saying, I along with many others spent 20 minutes trying to figure it out and got no where, it has been bothering me all day.  The game is designed for elementary school kids, and I'm in AP Calculus as a sophmore in high school and can't figure it out.  And some of my friends were helping me and they got 1600's on the SAT's and couldn't get it.  So I thought I would post it here and see if any of you could get the answer, or if it is a misprint...I wasn't sure if it was a misprint or not, because the directions of the game say that all have atleast one section.

So here are the numbers:

       7
3            3
       5

Have fun, don't let it keep you up at night. ;)

Mark

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Asked On
2003-11-19 at 19:26:09ID20803505
Tags

answer

,

math

,

all

,

impossible

Topic

Math & Science

Participating Experts
4
Points
50
Comments
8

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Answers

 

by: GwynforWebPosted on 2003-11-19 at 21:37:27ID: 9784906

(75 -3)/3

 from understanding brackets are allowed and it can not be done without combing the 7and 5 to make 75 which I also believe is in the rules (I ran a short program to test)

 

by: meow00Posted on 2003-11-20 at 10:02:35ID: 9789420

How about :

  57-33

meow......

 

by: meintsiPosted on 2003-11-20 at 10:56:00ID: 9789760

Here you go ..................
(following the explicit rules)

((3×5)-7)×3 = 24

 

by: GwynforWebPosted on 2003-11-20 at 15:36:08ID: 9791838

meintsi, ouch! How did my program miss tagt ( and me for that matter)

 

by: GwynforWebPosted on 2003-11-20 at 15:40:45ID: 9791872

hmm, my program did not miss it i did not check the output properly. :-(

 

by: simpsons17371Posted on 2003-11-20 at 17:06:55ID: 9792253

thats it, meintsi....i spent so long trying to figure it out and i completely overlooked that, along with a tom of other people.  i wonder what that is all about

 

by: VoicePosted on 2003-11-25 at 06:51:36ID: 9818087

GwynforWeb, would you mind posting the program?

thanks

 

by: GwynforWebPosted on 2004-01-05 at 16:13:18ID: 10048486

Voice,
     I just noticed your post. I ran this and then checked through the output for the right number of each number. Save it as a .htm and open in a browser. ( no programing awards here )

<script>
target=24
nums=new Array('3','3','5','7')
ops=new Array('+','-','*','/')
bl='('
br=')'
for (i=0;i<4;i++)
for (j=0;j<4;j++)
for (k=0;k<4;k++)
for (l=0;l<4;l++)
for (o1=0;o1<4;o1++)
for (o2=0;o2<4;o2++)
for (o3=0;o3<4;o3++)
{NumStr=bl+bl+nums[i]+ops[o1]+nums[j]+br+ops[o2]+nums[k]+br+ops[o3]+nums[l]
if (eval(NumStr)==target) document.write(NumStr+'='+target+'<br>')
}
</script>

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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