Problem of the Week 2011 Grand Finale

Run by Jack Hamilton

The Grand Finale

Throw 1: Throw 2: Throw 3:

We have finally reached the point where I can (happily) declare that the school year is almost

over. It is time for my last challenge to you for this school year (Though I will be continuing the

PW on my website, http://brainproblemoftheweek.blogspot.com for those who want more). I will

be giving you two weeks instead of the usual due to the unusual difficulty of this problem. I have

faith that you guys can solve it, as I have seen a lot of mental improvement in the minds of my

solvers over the year. What was hard at the year’s beginning is now a piece of cake for my true

solvers. Anyway, without further ado, I would like to introduce the hardest problem I have seen

in quite a while. (I did not invent this one; it is much too clever for one of my inventions!)

These dice have numbers on them that, as you might have noticed, work the way I showed

them as well as upside down. Who knows which way up they are supposed to be? Also, you are

going to have to figure out whether the dice in the second and third example are in the same

position that they are in the first (the first die in the second example might be the second die in
the first example). Again, who knows? What I will tell you is that the numbers on the bottom of

the dice in the first two rolls add up to 105 and 149, respectively. Your challenge is to tell me

what the numbers on the bottoms in the third roll add up to. I will not give the answer until the

next school year. Anyways, good luck! Have a great summer!

Oh, and last week’s winner was Robert McCullough.

We swear this problem is not impossible. We have given you the entire summer to work on it, so we had better have somebody
figure it out. When you do, post the answer in the comments section under this problem on my site. Again, best of luck…

Thank you all very much for participating this year. I certainly hope you will check my blog every

Monday morning over the summer for the next problem of the week. I would like to give special

recognition to my four top solvers in no particular order, as listed below:

Sam Mycroft

Jon Bryan

Ethan Baechtold

Austin Letson

Thanks, you guys. You really motivated me to keep going.

This problem was reformatted from the problem on page 98 of Kjartan Poskitt’s brainteaser book.