21 December 2016

Here's a good puzzle for you

 

12. A Matter of Belief

Fold up the string of letters below so it fits in the grid. Squares of the same colour (except white) must not contain contiguous letters in the string.

H E R U I H I E I N B U L L L D S F N D E I I S B

Who is the indicated person (of particular interest to members of the Royal Statistical Society)?

(4 points for the completed grid: 1 point for identifying the indicated person)
This question is one of thirteen components of the Royal Statistical Society Christmas Quiz for 2016.  Some of them appear to be fiendishly difficult.  This one is solvable with simple logic.  I'll place a clue to the answer in the Comments for this post.

(Please don't post answers to any of the other quiz questions in the comments; I'm still working on them.  Tx.)

Addendum January 2017:  The answers to all the quiz questions are now posted.

7 comments:

  1. The "person of interest" alluded to in the completed puzzle formulated a theorem describing the probability of an event occurring.

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  2. Without wishing to self-advertise too much you can find other puzzles like this on the PuzzleDonkey site. This was adapted from one we wrote, and given to RSS. There are several more of this type in increasing order of difficulty on the site, interspersed with many other original puzzles which may require you to think outside the box :). Happy Christmas! Rich P.

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  3. I must be interpreting this wrong... if the whole string is to be written into the grid, something seems to fall apart in the top left or right corner.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hint: the string may begin (or end) in the top left (or right) corner...

      Remember it's "folded in" to the square, so it twists and turns as it fills up the space.

      Now you can solve it.

      One other hint: Don't try to start using the letters. Just draw a line to satisfy the criteria, then insert the letters when the line is in place.

      Delete
    2. Oh right, I can see that now. I'm sorry, I feel stupid. I somehow thought it had to start and end at the same place. Thanks :)

      Delete
  4. Turns out playing The Witness has been of some use after all!

    ReplyDelete