Hello, solvers ~
This month we come to the end of our math journey through the realm of the pronics, the products of consecutive whole numbers, three times four being one of them. If you were waiting to take the entire journey non-stop and save on the bnb fees, then this is a perfect time to begin, or you can skip to Part Four: Pronics and Primes Awhirl. Find it in Pop Math.
For the foreseeable future Uncle Bob will be offering two new versions of the puzzle Nothing in Common each month. Why? A few selfish reasons: UB loves words, and solving these often introduces new or forgotten ones. There is always a fresh challenge, since the count of different possible sets of twelve letters out of 26 is a huge number, even considering the necessity for vowels in each dozen.
Most importantly, I’ve gotten hooked on this puzzle form because each construction does not begin with the solution; rather I must solve it as it will be posed to you, and assess its difficulty before I offer it. In many cases the solution begins easily, but gets more challenging as your string of words grows, and it all ends with the difficult step of connecting the string back to where you began to complete the loop. I've included a detailed tutorial entitled “Let’s Solve One Together,” and it has been revised to be more helpful. Here’s a new tip I’ve recently had success with: play the words containing ’s’ against ones containing ‘e,’ that is, avoid using both in a single word.
You’ll find our other regular puzzles in attendance too.
Happy solving and Cheers from UB and AC (that’s Aunt Claire).
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