Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!

Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!

Register Log in
  • Congratulations wOOdy-Soft on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

Trackword(s) for you to solve

Status
Not open for further replies.
Mike Lewis

Mike Lewis

Programmer
Jan 10, 2003
17,516
Scotland
OK, I've gone as far as I can with my Trackword-solving program. (And thanks to all those who came up with their own programs or contributed ideas.) So now I thought I would give you a trackword or two to actually solve.

The aim here is not to discuss automated ways of solving it. It is simply to solve the puzzle.

The rules: Starting from any cell in the 3 x 3 grid, you can and move through the grid one cell at a time, horizontally, vertically or diagonally, visiting each cell only once. Your job is:
[ul][li]To find the nine-letter word.[/li]
[li]To find as many words as possible of three or more letters. Abbreviations, proper nouns and foreign words not nornmally used in English are all disallowed.[/li][/ul]

Algorithm_pekczy.jpg


I found 23 words, all of which are in Chambers Dictionary (2003 edition).

Hint: The nine-letter word is one that will be familiar to everyone in this forum.

Have fun,

Mike

__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
52 altogether BUT that's becasue I am still using the english3 wordlist which, as we know, contains abbreviations and proper nouns.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
And with a 2019 copy of SOWPODS (essentially the Collins dictionary), I get 50
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Mike Lewis said:
The rules: Starting from any cell in the 3 x 3 grid, you can and move through the grid one cell at a time, horizontally, vertically or diagonally, visiting each cell only once. Your job is:
[li]To find the nine-letter word.
To find as many words as possible of three or more letters. Abbreviations, proper nouns and foreign words not nornmally used in English[/li] are all disallowed.
Click to expand...

[pre]MTI
HGR
LAO[/pre]

I'm not sure I understand the rules. Is it: Starting from M, I could theoretically go to T, then I, R, G, H, L, A, O. Or again from M, I could instead go to H, G, T, I, R, O, A, L, etc. And from G, I could go to M, T, I, R, O, A, L, H, etc. And likewise from every cell to any paths that can be taken which reach all letters, or even paths that terminate before reaching all letters?

Is that correct? Basically to exhaust every possible path from every cell in the 3x3 grid? And am I seeing how many words I can find like "MTHLAGIRO" I could see "LAG" in there? Or is it just words counted beginning from the starting point?

--
Rick C. Hodgin
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Rick you'll find a longer discussion about the origins of this in thread1551-1811770
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Rick,

I hope the thread that Strongm referenced will answer your question.

But just to pick up your point 'And am I seeing how many words I can find like "MTHLAGIRO"'. Well, no, because MTHLAGIRO is not a word. But LAG and perhaps GIRO would be allowed.

And remember, you can start from any cell. So, for example, you could start from H and get HAG and HART. But you wouldn't get any words starting from M, because there are no words that begin with MH, or MG or MT (as far as I know).

I hope this makes sense. What's interesting about this kind of puzzle is that there are usually far more valid words than appears at first glance.

Mike

__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

Chris Miller
  • Locked
  • Poll
Are you interested in this forum?
Replies
4
Views
830
SkipVought
S
kwbMitel
  • Locked
  • Question
Please help Re: Simplifying an explanation to the Monty Hall Puzzle
2
Replies
25
Views
1K
Mike Lewis
Mike Lewis
FoxAll
  • Locked
  • Question
Sorry for my english :) There ar
Replies
6
Views
651
karluk
karluk
karluk
  • Locked
  • Question
SidYuca - In memoriam
Replies
6
Views
481
karluk
karluk
Chris Miller
  • Locked
  • Question
number series (continued)
Replies
3
Views
368
Chris Miller
Chris Miller

Part and Inventory Search

Sponsor

Back
Top