am yisrael chai-
You’re 3-for-3 with the “Food for Thought” puzzle.
The one you’re missing is a popular fast food.
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On the “Ice Cream, You Scream” puzzle, there are only two numbers that work for all four children to correctly get the answers.
The order of the “Yes” answers is important – Delta couldn’t have solved her part without the prior “yes”s.
If you would like a bit of a hint:
– neither number is zero (Alpha’s product must be unique)
– 4 and 2 aren’t the numbers because their product is the same as 8 and 1. This can be extrapolated to other numbers, too.
– It can’t be a double number (11, 22, 33, etc.), because those will always subtract to zero.
If you’d like to cheat:
1) Create a list of all unique two-number combinations in columns A and B of a spreadsheet. You can omit zeros, double-numbers, and revered combinations (e.g. 18, 81).
2) The formula for column C will be A*B. All rows that have non-unique column C values can be eliminated.
3) The formula for column D will be A+B. All rows that have non-unique column D values can be eliminated.
4) The formula for column E will be A-B (or B-A – whatever the larger minus the smaller is). All rows that have non-unique column E values can be eliminated.
5) The formula for column F will be (D + E) / C. All rows that have non-unique column F values can be eliminated. Only 1 row will be left.