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Congrats to Milhotep for:
A. Getting the correct answer: 042.
B. Explaining the logic behind achieving the correct answer.
C. Pointing out that clues 4 and 5 were unnecessary.
Now that got me to thinking. Why were clues 4 and 5 unnecessary? They were, in fact, unnecessary; I'm not disputing Milhotep's observation. But WHY were they unnecessary? Sometimes, you might reply, puzzles are purposely presented with unnecessary information to make the puzzle more difficult to solve. But in this case, the LAST TWO clues were unnecessary. So one could have solved the puzzle before even arriving at the unnecessary portion of the puzzle. Perhaps, I thought to myself, one of the clues were presented with mistaken information. So, with much time on my hands, I set about changing the clues so that all five clues were quite necessary to arrive at the correct answer of 042. And I think I have come up with a minimal change which requires all five clues: Change the number in the second clue from 614 to 314. Does anyone agree with me? Disagree? Could care less? Think I have too much time? Please let me know.
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042, nice to sharp our minds... thank you
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