The "Spam in my Inbox" Maths Challenge

[uart]

The "Spam in my InBox" Challenge"

As a follow on from the "Petals around the Rose" challenge in this thread HERE, I have come up with a new but similar challenge. It's called "The Spam in my Inbox" and uses the rolls of 5 dice to unambiguously determine the amount of Spam I have. It is a fairly simple relationship that can be described in one sentence and I've made 30 random trials and tabulated the results.

So take the challenge, can you determine the relationship between the dice and the spam ?


x1,x2,x3,x4,x5 : Spam
------------------------------
3 3 6 1 3 : 8
2 6 3 2 5 : 2
6 1 4 3 6 : 8
5 5 1 6 5 : 12
4 4 2 4 2 : 8
3 2 6 2 5 : 4
6 6 2 4 2 : 8
1 3 5 6 4 : 1
5 1 3 1 2 : 2
3 1 3 5 2 : 10
3 5 5 3 2 : 2
5 5 1 1 1 : 3
6 6 2 3 2 : 7
3 5 3 6 5 : 6
6 5 5 6 6 : 16
2 6 1 2 3 : 2
3 3 5 1 4 : 6
1 4 3 5 2 : 5
4 5 5 1 2 : 9
4 4 5 3 2 : 10
3 2 2 4 1 : 10
4 6 1 4 3 : 10
3 3 4 5 3 : 2
4 6 6 6 3 : 17
6 5 4 4 6 : 13
4 3 3 6 6 : 14
4 1 6 1 6 : 10
5 5 4 6 1 : 11
1 2 3 5 6 : 5
4 4 1 1 6 : 8

 

[jagec]

You should do another one to determine the subject line on the inbox.
how about
3 2 4 2 "Get free herbal Viagra"
1 1 2 3 "uart you have small p-nis...enlarge now!"
3 5 2 1 "I send you this file in order to get your advice"
1 4 2 2 "See sexy s|uts in action!"

 

[uart]

Yup jagec, that's pretty much what my spam generally looks like.

 

[DrPizza]

would 44232 = 7?
would 56445 = 14?

 

[uart]

would 44232 = 7?
would 56445 = 14?

Yup, I think you've cracked it.

 

[DrPizza]

Yeah, I wish I had cracked it. I made an observation that solves half of them, but can't quite generalize it, although I think I'm pretty close. I only had about 10 or 20 minutes while I ate lunch earlier. Hopefully, I'll have time tonight to look at it again.

 

[DrPizza]

Okay... that was mean! A little sorting of your list, and things stood out. Unless I really blundered, wouldn't a negative value be possible in a couple of cases? Or is there an absolute value in there?
I'm surprised all the people who responded with "I got the petals around the rose" problem in 1 or 2 tries aren't responding here! Maybe it's because they remembered the original thread's answer in OT (in which it took about 40 replies before someone posted the answer... til then, 3/4 of the people were struggling, after which, suddenly everyone figured it out right away.)

 

[uart]

Yep, there's an absolute value in there, well done.

I'm surprised all the people who responded with "I got the petals around the rose" problem in 1 or 2 tries aren't responding here!

Yeah that was really the point of this challenge, and to show how much more difficult it is when it's not one of the likely candidates (like a linear functional).

Since I'm pretty sure you've got the solution (or something close) and no-one else is trying, I'll post the answer.

Ordering the dice first to last from left to right, the quanity of "Spam" is equal to the absolute difference between,
1. the sum of all dice up to and including the first roll greater than 3 and
2. the remaining dice.

So for example, if the dice where say "3 1 5 4 2", then the result is |(3+1+5) - (4+2)| = 3. Or if the dice where "6 3 4 1 2" then the result is |(6) - (3+4+1+2)| = 4, etc.

 

[DrPizza]

I totally agree that it's much more difficult if it's not one of the more likely candidates. But, I figured the petals problems *was* a more likely candidate. I never even tried to find a linear solution for your problem - I figured you knew your challenge wasn't a challenge if you did.

Ironically, almost finding the solution is what caused me to overlook the solution for quite a while. I realized that for all of the ones beginning with a 4,5,or6, simply subtract the first and add the rest. I crossed those out, and concentrated on the remaining 13 that started with 1, 2, or 3. I also forgot about the 4,5,6 thing, as I was thinking along the lines "if it starts with 4-6 do this, but if it starts with 1-3 do that." It was quite a while before I thought of 61111, realized absolute value was needed, and put the 4,5,6 back in. For whatever reason, I still had it broken into 2 rules, without stopping to think that second rule included the first rule.

 

[jumpthru]

Okay, I created a new puzzle for those interested...

x1,x2,x3,x4,x5
------------------------------
3 3 6 1 3 : 12
2 6 3 2 5 : 8
4 1 4 3 2 : 12
5 5 1 6 5 : 22
4 4 2 4 2 : 14
3 2 6 2 5 : 11
5 6 2 4 2 : 19
1 3 5 6 4 : 1
5 1 3 1 2 : 12
3 1 3 5 2 : 7
3 5 5 3 2 : 13
5 5 1 1 1 : 13

 

[uart]

Originally posted by: jumpthru
Okay, I created a new puzzle for those interested...

x1,x2,x3,x4,x5
------------------------------
3 3 6 1 3 : 12
2 6 3 2 5 : 8
4 1 4 3 2 : 12
5 5 1 6 5 : 22
4 4 2 4 2 : 14
3 2 6 2 5 : 11
5 6 2 4 2 : 19
1 3 5 6 4 : 1
5 1 3 1 2 : 12
3 1 3 5 2 : 7
3 5 5 3 2 : 13
5 5 1 1 1 : 13

x5 = sum of the first x1 numbers. In other words, the first throw determines how many consecetive values you add.

 

[jumpthru]

Alright, good job, you got it.

 

[Ready]

ehh...u made this too difficult. Didn't bother to solve it, but did realize that the rule changes depending on which number u run
into....that's just toooooo complicated.