c4countdown

Posted: **Tue Apr 26, 2022 2:29 pm**

This is another New Scientist puzzle, following on from Squarebot. I don't think I need to explain why it might be relevant on a Countdown forum.

In the TV number quiz show Down for the Count, four contestants are challenged to combine each of five number cards exactly once to achieve a target number. They are allowed to use standard arithmetical operations +, –, × and ÷ (as well as brackets, if required).

“I’ll take five cards from the top row”, requested one of the contestants, and the presenter Anne-Marie obligingly revealed these five numbers:

10
100
1,000
10,000
100,000.

The studio computer then generated today’s challenge:

“Produce a whole number without any zeroes.”

No zeroes? Wow. Each of the four contestants thought hard, and after the timer ran out, each announced that they had used the five cards to produce a positive number smaller than 10. All four were different.

Which numbers did they get, and how?

I've managed to get 3 of the 4 so far and I'll post the details in a bit. See how you get on.

Posted: **Tue Apr 26, 2022 2:38 pm**

Got them all (last one took much longer than the first three)

Posted: **Tue Apr 26, 2022 4:26 pm**

Same as T-Cap.

Posted: **Tue Apr 26, 2022 6:55 pm**

Got them all in about an even amount of time, maybe 90 seconds per answer. Good puzzle, thanks for sharing.

Posted: **Sat May 07, 2022 8:51 pm**

Nice puzzle

Posted: **Mon May 09, 2022 1:18 am**

Happy to have cracked all four eggs in that Omelette!

Posted: **Mon May 09, 2022 9:34 am**

I'm too thick to get the fourth one.

Posted: **Mon May 09, 2022 10:49 am**

Gavin Chipper wrote: ↑Mon May 09, 2022 9:34 am I'm too thick to get the fourth one.

The numbers you can make are:

1, 2, 5, and 9.

Now try.

Posted: **Mon May 09, 2022 1:37 pm**

I was in the "got three of them quickly, but took ages on the final one" club, but would be interested to know if we all struggled on the same number. The one that took me longest was the third in Callum's list, possibly because with the others I sort of knew those numbers must be gettable, whilst I wasn't overly confident on what the final one would be (although it did turn out to be the one I would have guessed as most likely).

Posted: **Thu May 12, 2022 2:03 am**

Also in that club, but for me it was the first number. Was the most obvious one to start off searching for but eluded me until long after I'd found the others!

c4countdown

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