jhillis (10/22/82)
Awhile back, someone submitted an article concerning a long division problem with the numbers replaced by letters. I found the article the other evening while cleaning out some files and thought I'd give it a try. The problem: R A T E ---------------- S T E P / V P O O T O P Y O R A E R --------- T P A O O I Y I E A --------- I I O P P I P Y E T --------- V E R Y It took me about 10 minutes (I made a subtraction mistake) to solve this. The method I used was partially ordered sets. To use this method, you simply make obvious comparisons between letters (ie s>v,t=i+1, etc) until you have built a partial ordering between the letters. In the worst case, after all possible comparisons have been made you simply make a few guesses to get the solution. In this case that wasn't necessary once you notice p=1 (r*step=oraer, a*step=iyiea, etc). Jeffrey Hillis BTL-IH ..ihuxf!jhillis