Monday, September 25, 2023 Sep 25, 2023
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PUZZLING

#108 Numbers Game
By Peggy Oglesby |

OK, puzzlers – put down your dictionaries and pick up your pocket calculators. Actually a scratch pad and a pencil will do fine. This month’s little maddener offers some mathematical mischief as a little change of pace.

Instructions:

Each clue represents an exercise in simple arithmetic. Every letter represents a number. The same letter appearing more than once in a clue always represents the same number. Conversely, two different letters in a clue cannot represent the same number. (And by convention, the beginning letter never represents a zero.) Each clue, once decoded into numbers, represents a true arithmetical statement. (Note: O = letterO, 0 = numerical zero).

The clues are entirely independent of each other, so the same letter can take on different values in different clues. That is, the T in 7 across may not have the same numerical value as the T in 8 across.



A sample clue:



DONALD +GERALD

ROBERT; enter ROBERT



The object is to determine the numerical values for each of the letters in ROBERT and enter that value in the diagram (note that this sample has a six-digit answer, whereas the actual puzzle deals with five-digit answers; however, the process for solution is essentially the same). For the sake of an easy starting point, suppose you have determined from the solution of another clue that the space in the diagram where the T in ROBERT will be entered contains a zero, and therefore T = 0. How do you proceed?

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