Listener 4049: The Domino Effect by Googly

[turnerjmw]

The dreaded numbers. Googly was last seen in November 2006 with Solve Two, Get One Free.

I enjoyed this. Not too much heavy duty calculator work, and it all fell smoothly into place. Cheers, Googly

[clivew]

I still don't get it. All the digits of both words (8 and 18) add up to what V translates to. Is this correct.

[perseverer]

Unfortunately no! You must have gone wrong somewhere. What you said about 9d giving two possibilities etc was what I found, so up to there you may be OK.

[clivew]

It must be Q and I then or otherwise there would have been a conflict. I needed to fit the last domino in in those squares.

[perseverer]

Q and I were just about the last letters I evaluated, by considering the dominoes, but they wouldn't have any effect on 8.

[clivew]

Hi again perseverer. I'm getting nowhere. Did you take the smallest of the 9d options. I had to or there was a conflict with the dominoes.

[perseverer]

Yes - a number in which the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th digits were the same. The incorrect alternative also had 3 digits the same.

[clivew]

That stacks up except my alternative had only 2 digits the same. Was it the 2-5 domino that needed to go in last?

[Cruncher]

clivew - the 2/5 domino is the last domino to fit in. There are various permutations but only one that fits all the other criteria and makes for a sensible word out of the middle 3 squares.
2 days left to post it!

[clivew]

Thanks Cruncher. I've now sorted out and decoded 18 and 31 (a senior moment prevented me from doing this). I won't be sending the solution in (I've got a Chambers crossword dictionary) but can't be beaten by a numerical puzzle. I must have an error in the 8a region as it factorizes into 1 single digit and 1 triple digit prime.

[Mysterons]

You have clivew - 8 across has 32 factors (5 of them prime), with 13 of them less than 100, including all the prime factors. Of the 13, just 6 are represented by letters in this puzzle, and it happens to be the 5 prime factors that are required for the anagram of the first word.

[Mysterons]

PS None of the digits in 8 across contribute to a domino

[clivew]

All is clear. I'm not insane but I need new specs. My copy has a rather bold line after the 3rd digit and I've been trying to factorize a 3 digit number. Now I can sleep. Thanks to all.

[tbayliss]

I presume it's OK to discuss the answers in more detail now we're past the posting date.
Is this just me? I was expecting the pattern of the dominos or blanks to follow some pattern - anyone have any ideas there? The title is no clue. It looks like some sort of animal - perhaps a dragon with its feet facing right and head facing left - the 2 floating dominos at top left could be the flames? Rotating the grid does not help.
One of the toughest ever I think. Took a long time to get started and once you get the 1st numbers, you think the rest will be easy but you keep getting stuck again. I did use a spreadsheet, not as a brute force cheat but just to save repeating the same calculation over and over when I'd narrowed things down as far as my logic and maths could get. Even when down to the last 2 letters, I and Q were the toughest to get as you had quite a lot of work to find the last domino (2-5), and even then it could go either way - up or down - especially as the shape did not help. I look forward to seeing the purely logical steps on the Listener web site.

[Cruncher]

tbayliss - I didn't expect there to be any other scheme to the dominos beyond the logic and deduction required to identify which one went where. I was impressed that there were no ambiguities. But you may be right. Perhaps there is a lurking dragon....