mscroggs.co.uk
mscroggs.co.uk

subscribe

Comment

Comments

Comments in green were written by me. Comments in blue were not written by me.
@(anonymous): It’s certainly do-able, but whereas I was able to find a single simple summation formula for the day that asked for no odd consecutive amounts, this one has eluded me so just wondering if an elegant approach does exist
Blake
on /blog/120
               
@Blake: there is an elegant solution but it is very different from day 14. If a small hint is allowed:

recurrence relations!
Aisha
on /blog/120
               
@Aisha: Thanks! I did think of that originally but even going back now I can’t seem to find a neat way to apply that approach (and even the OEIS doesn’t seem to give one for the sequence I get solving this for smaller cases). Would be interested to know how you went about this! As it happens, with a bit more thought I did end up finding a single (double-summation) formula that could be used to calculate this
Blake
on /blog/120
               
@Aisha: Hm, I used exactly the same method for both of these days. I'm not sure if it lends itself to a nice clean formula, but it might! I'll share my approach after the contest is over!
Seth Cohen
on /blog/120
               

Archive

Show me a random blog post
 2026 

May 2026

World Cup stickers 2026

Apr 2026

A new puzzle every day
Mixing Wordle with other games

Feb 2026

Christmas (2025) is over
 2025 

Dec 2025

Christmas card 2025

Nov 2025

Christmas (2025) is coming!

Sep 2025

The partridge puzzle

Aug 2025

TMiP 2025 puzzle hunt

Jun 2025

A nonogram alphabet

Mar 2025

How to write a crossnumber

Jan 2025

Christmas (2024) is over
Friendly squares
 2024 

Dec 2024

A regular expression Christmas puzzle
Christmas card 2024

Nov 2024

Christmas (2024) is coming!

Feb 2024

Zines, pt. 2

Jan 2024

Christmas (2023) is over
 2023 
▼ show ▼
 2022 
▼ show ▼
 2021 
▼ show ▼
 2020 
▼ show ▼
 2019 
▼ show ▼
 2018 
▼ show ▼
 2017 
▼ show ▼
 2016 
▼ show ▼
 2015 
▼ show ▼
 2014 
▼ show ▼
 2013 
▼ show ▼
 2012 
▼ show ▼

Tags

boundary element methods fonts radio 4 error bars pi curvature bodmas regular expressions golden spiral accuracy turtles kings datasaurus dozen royal institution programming video games convergence harriss spiral kenilworth tetris final fantasy finite element method misleading statistics stickers mean live stream computational complexity matrix multiplication polynomials people maths arithmetic golden ratio signorini conditions braiding pythagoras national lottery coventry pi approximation day statistics plastic ratio hannah fry talking maths in public mathsteroids palindromes dataset preconditioning manchester rugby asteroids folding paper graph theory countdown raspberry pi binary oeis determinants the aperiodical standard deviation quadrilaterals trigonometry triangles data sport matrix of minors nonograms bempp manchester science festival big internet math-off mathsjam advent calendar wordle anscombe's quartet realhats graphs gather town chess hyperbolic surfaces stirling numbers world cup reuleaux polygons frobel crochet mathslogicbot light logo matrix of cofactors european cup pascal's triangle python php newcastle 24 hour maths estimation edinburgh tennis go martin gardner numerical analysis gerry anderson tmip gaussian elimination youtube weak imposition bots a gamut of games coins geogebra phd matrices fractals puzzles pokémon friendly squares alphabets electromagnetic field wave scattering christmas card draughts football squares warwick royal baby ternary sorting craft map projections london logs partridge puzzle captain scarlet bluesky bubble bobble crosswords propositional calculus exponential growth chalkdust magazine crossnumber finite group runge's phenomenon menace chebyshev reddit thirteen hexapawn games game of life recursion inline code sobolev spaces dinosaurs errors approximation correlation game show probability crossnumbers machine learning pac-man pizza cutting nine men's morris interpolation databet folding tube maps latex ucl noughts and crosses london underground news flexagons speed numbers arrangement puzzles books christmas dates logic zines guest posts dragon curves rust simultaneous equations inverse matrices pokémon wordle weather station sound probability rhombicuboctahedron platonic solids data visualisation wool hats javascript geometry fence posts cambridge cross stitch matt parker

Archive

Show me a random blog post
▼ show ▼
© Matthew Scroggs 2012–2026