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Home >> Learning >> 2016 Year Game

A bit of fun (and possibly frustration!) for 2016...our "puzzle of the year". Enjoy!

The Objective

Find APL expressions involving exactly the digits 2 0 1 6 in that order to equal the numbers 0 to 100. For example:

   20=16
0

   ×2016
1

   2⌊016
2

   2+0+1*6
3

...

The aim is to use as few characters as possible in each expression (the minimum number of characters for an expression is 5 – the four digits 2 0 1 6 and a single primitive function/operator).

The Rules

• Each expression must contain the digits 2 0 1 6 (in that order) and no other digits.
• In addition to the four digits 2 0 1 6, only primitive functions/operators, parentheses/braces, spaces, high minus signs and decimal points can be used. The resultant expressions must be deterministic (that is, give the same result on repeated evaluations).
• Assume ⎕ML and ⎕IO are both 1.
• Each entry comprising correct expressions for all the numbers from 0 to 100 inclusive will be rated according to the number of characters used by those expressions excluding redundant spaces (minimum 505 for all 101 expressions).

2016 Hall of Fame

An amalgamation of all the entries showing the expressions that use the fewest characters for each number can be downloaded as a text file. Congratulations to Jonas Stensiö and Veli-Matti Jantunen, who both achieved the same character count as the amalgamated minimum. Of course, there could be shorter expressions out there...