My brain hurts

I’ve got a friend who sent me a teaser, this morning. It is absolutely cheating to use Google or any of its brethren.

The idea is to express the values from 0 to 100, inclusive, by only using mathematical symbols and four numeral fours.

An example: 0 can be written as 44 – 44

You must use all four fours, even if you only need three.

7 comments ↓

#1 ~Bird~ on 05.09.06 at 4:51 pm

Your friend must be such a nerd. 😉

#2 Rachel on 05.12.06 at 3:39 pm

Oh my, this is going to keep me up nights. The easiest ones:
1 = 4th root of 4 divided by the 4th root of 4 OR 1 = 4/4 + (4-4)

8 = 4 + 4 + (4-4)

16 = 4 + 4 + 4 + 4

32 = 4(4) + 4(4)

🙂

#3 Charlie on 05.14.06 at 9:08 am

1= 44/44
2= 4/4 + 4/4
3= sq.root(4) + sq.root(4) – 4/4

ooh that last one made my brain hurt too cuz I’m a little bit drunk and I wasn’t sure if square root counted as a mathematical symbol since I can’t really type it…
🙂
but I’m gonna keep at this.

#4 ~Bird~ on 05.15.06 at 8:48 pm

!

#5 Heather on 05.15.06 at 8:51 pm

You are such a tease. Did you get 31?

#6 ~Bird~ on 05.15.06 at 9:07 pm

Yes, I did. The only ones I have left are 37, 41, 71, 73, 89, and 93. And they’re likely never to be solved by me. Some guy on the internet has published his list of solutions for all integers 0 to 40,000. I can’t even imagine doing that many. BTW, I didn’t see his answers… you have to DL a separate file.

#7 ~Bird~ on 05.18.06 at 2:31 am

Heather, have you gotten 85 yet?

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