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New Scientist puzzle #57: Matchstick magic

29 April 2020

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#57 Matchstick magic

Your challenge is to move two matchsticks to produce a calculation that gives an odd number. How many solutions can you find?

1-3: well done. 4-6: brilliant. 7-10: amazing. 11: exceptional.

Answer next week

#56 Diffy

While the numbers 1, 3, 9 and 12 give you five Diffy squares (shown below), placing 1, 3, 6, and12 clockwise around the square will give you 10 Diffy squares. You can find them by a combination of wor king backwards and some experimentation. For example, since the final square has 0, 0, 0, 0 at its corners, the one before…

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