Listener 4088 - Digimix by Oyler

[Philoctetes]

Well, thank goodness we have a long weekend. I think I might need that to work out what the blazes the clues mean! I had one theory, but the rubric that all entries are different turned me towards a slight revision of that. I shall go along on that hypothesis for now - but not until I have had a nice, strong cup of tea!

[Rogue-Elfe]

The one thing I'm worried about in this puzzle (my entry already in the post) is that this is by Oyler. He is one of the best mathematical setters of the few that submit them. His crosswords are usually very neat and have as much of a satisfying finale to them as many of the regular crosswords. I cannot say that about this one, which makes me wonder if I have it correct.
The rubric is to my mind extremely confusing. Entries are the answers you enter into the grid, aren't they? So phrases like 'Across entries are in capitals' would be better written as 'Across entries are clued using capitals'. Taking the final sentence literally, we should be totalling up all of the answers (which are indeed missing entries since the grid is blank to begin with) but neither this nor the sum of the absent values indicated by asterisks makes any kind of sense. If said total was pandigital then no problem at all. If it made a 'word' on an upside-down calculator that was somehow relevant, then that's OK too - but no. Neither did that. I ended up totalling the asterised values, which seemed to be the most logical thing to do given the otherwise extranneous 11th row of clues; but there was no satisfaction here for me. Ho Hum.

[Zabadak]

R-E: your summing of all the *** numbers looks to b the only realistic one as Oyler seems to be using "entries" to mean the clue lines and not what you put in the grid. I get a 5 digit number that is nothing special, though its digits are all different. Like you, I suspect, I was hoping it would mean something. Maybe those who know all the possible 9 digit solutions can let us know if its half of another pair: I can't be bothered to find out!

[Alekhine]

Zabadak - I don't think the total can be one half of another pair as it would contravene the requirements

[hallobilly]

I toowould have thought it possible to adapt the puzzle so that the final sum can be turned into a relevant word, as in few recent maths puzzles, but that wasn't the case here. However, I liked the fact that in the later stages, various of the grid entries could be derived from more than one clue, so confirming that the working was correct up to that point.

[teuchter2]

I almost gave up on this one. After eventually understanding what I was trying to do I made a mistake about half way through. I managed to find it this morning and am now finished. Thanks to Mysterons as I don't think I could have done it without the codepad. I enjoy the numbers offerings on the whole, but prefer the word crosswords as I usually learn something new.

[AndyMMac]

Hi,

Newbie here - (please forgive me if I post something spoilerific).

I thought this was fine once I caved in and accepted that I wouldn't get far without using spreadsheets. I was slightly underwhelmed by the ending and had hoped, as others have said, that the total could be converted into something that would give a satisfying ending.

Having said that, I examined Zabadak's suggestion that the total could be one half of a pair and lo and behold, if you consider answers of 10 digits (by introducing a zero), you do get something of the form:

(TOTAL)^2 + (combination of 4 remaining digits)^2 = answer with 1 occurrence of each digit from 0-9.

That's my two pennies worth and I'm even sure if it's worth that but it's at least in keeping with the theme (sort of).

[AndrewG-S]

I didn't think the cluing was too bad, if fact working out what had to be done was probably the most enjoyable bit. The rest was playing around with excel writing formulae to try to limit the work. Preferred the last numerical (square bashing) as the finish was more exciting, unless I am missing something...

[AndrewG-S]

I think maybe it is the setter's birthday?

[Zabadak]

If it is, he's on a very strange calendar, or I'm really wrong!

[AndrewG-S]

American calendar?

[Zabadak]

I guess that's possible: like I say, it's a very strange calendar!!

[Mysterons]

Possible, but not very likely, when you consider his first Listener puzzle appeared 3 months before his second birthday. He features in this 2006 review of 'crossnumber puzzles' which refers to the Listener numericals (see p.19) and also considers solving strategies in some detail:

http://scisun.sci.ccn...wyscc/CrossNumber.pdf

[AndrewG-S]

He could be really old...

[catstail]

I've either misread the preamble or have made a very silly mistake. I get the value for h - that XYZ/PQ is fine. I also have a couple of other rows of clues sorted. The second row of clues has h reversed as Z. X has very limited number of solutions. Every XYZ which is possible is not the sum of two squares where 1-9 once only are used.
I think h is wrong.
Have set up excel tables, and I cannot find an error anywhere, but there must be one.
Will sleep on it.
Somewhere is a very very basic mistake.
I make h the 2nd, 5th, and 8th figures of P _Q on the first row. Am I on the right track please?

[dr b]

catstail, your answer for h agrees with mine.

[dr b]

Assuming, of course, that you have the same 2nd, 5th, and 8th figures of P_Q on the first row as I do!

[catstail]

Many thanks. Will go through the possibilities for XYZ of second row again. Will fight with excel again. If I ever needed the motivation to learn java this is it (assuming java is still the "in" language). I learnt Basic at school, and that was a long time ago..

[tbayliss]

Well I finally cracked this one today and then looked at the comments in here. At least 80% was working out all of the possibilities for PQXYZ and then working out what to do with them but looking at the comments here, hasn't that been given away. Shouldn't there just be hints here when you're stuck on one one or two clues rather than 80% of the whole solution.

[catstail]

Phew. Am on the move again. Spent ages trying to find the second row. Checked, double checked etc etc For some reason the site I used did not give me the full list of answers. WIll stick to codepad!

[daagg]

tbayliss, I think there are several ways of solving this. I certainly didn't enumerate all the possibilities, although I did consider the idea. I solved it reasonably quickly, and probably more satisfyingly, by the traditional method of chipping away at various clues and intersecting across and down answers.

I think the hints here strike a good balance between helping inexperienced people and comparing notes after completion.