Skip to content

Sunday Times Teaser 2626 – Homophones

by Graham Smithers

Using different digits to consistently represent different letters, I have three primes, TWO, TOO and TO, and two further numbers, STRAIGHT and STRAIT, the digits of which form a consecutive set.

All numbers mentioned (including WOE below) have non-zero leading digits.

What number does WOE represent?

4 Comments Leave one →
  1. brian gladman permalink

    Here is my solution

    and here is a much faster version that relies on a small amount of analysis

    • geoffrounce permalink

      Another version – this gives all solutions and constant values for WOE,TWO,TOO and TO, plus variable values for STRAIT and STRAIGHT.

  2. Here’s another one:

    • brian gladman permalink

      Hi Arthur,

      Thank you for contributing here!

      I noticed that, since O is the units digit of a three digit prime, it has to be odd so some of your (W,O) conditions aren’t necessary.

      Also, are you sure that you have covered all possibilities when (W,O) comparisons are list rather than set based? I get:

      E | ordered (W, O) values
      0 | (1, 9), (2, 1), (8, 9), (9, 1)
      7 | (8, 9)
      8 | (7, 9), (9, 7)
      9 | (8, 7)

      Fortunately the ambiguous (8, 9) doesn’t occur 🙂

Leave a comment to brian gladman Cancel reply

Note: HTML is allowed. Your email address will not be published.

Subscribe to this comment feed via RSS