This addition sum
SEND
MORE
MONEY
was first published by Henry Dudeney in 1924. The conventions for verbal arithmetic, as it is known, are that
It is a bonus if
SEND
MORE
MONEY
was first published by Henry Dudeney in 1924. The conventions for verbal arithmetic, as it is known, are that
- each letter stands for a different digit and
- none of the numbers involved start with a zero.
It is a bonus if
- there is a unique solution, and
- the words make up a meaningful phrase,
Here are two more
WRONG
WRONG
R I GHT
and MAKE + THIS = ADDUP.
A nice variation on the idea has been used by Susan Denham*, author of some of the more elegant Enigma puzzles in the New Scientist, a British science weekly. Here are two of her examples:
- EIGHT is a cube, PRIME is a prime, and NINE is divisible by 9.
- NINETY is divisible by 9, TEN is one more than a perfect square, which is also divisible by 9, and there are SIX perfect squares between TEN and NINETY.
Readers are invited to send in their solutions for a prize, so the second one ended with the question "What number should be SENT?"
*This name is a pseudonym, which is an approximate homophone for Sue Denham.
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