ECE nigm a

About the event

The research in the ECE departmen t at IISc is focussed on many different
areas Some of them include communicatio n networks, signal processing ,
microelect ronics , information theory, coding theory etc. The problems that we aim to
address are modeled using mathematical tools which are then solved using
probabilist ic and analytical techniques . While the techniques themselves need
elaborate and rigorous mathematics to be done, the ideas behind them are very
illustrious and are worth a mention in their own right. ECEnigma aims to bring you
closer to the research being done at the ECE department in IISc by giving you a
peek into these ideas through a variety of puzzles. Whi le solvin g these puzzles are a
good exercise by themselves, we hope you would take these ideas back with
yourselves . This excerpt from the movie V for Vendetta captures the spirit we wish
to instill through ECEnigma: "We are told to remember the idea, not the man,
because a man can fail. He can be caught, he can be killed and forgotten, but 400
years later, an idea can still change the world."
The following pages consist of some puzzles and space has been provided to
answer the same. Succinct answers with detailed explanations earn better points.
Innovative creative ones much more. Each question carries 50 points. The last
question provides hints for some other questions. If these other questions are solved
without solving the last one , points for the last one will anyway be awarded . There is
a time limit of 60 mins. If the time taken by the team is T then 60-T points are
awarded as a time bonus. Time bonus applies only if at least two questions have
been solved. Note that this could be negative also. That's it folks. Flip over.

Names: M ~~H -
Contact numbers: ~bllC/"1 7og3,

Age: I~
College/Sch ool: _<;.&. . T ~~ ~~

Start time. \ 2. \ 7

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 ECEnigma
A sneak peak .
into the research @ECE-IISc
1. Coins and b
Th a lances
e puzzle requires to .
experiment . design the best possibl .
experime s to identif'j the defective coin with e scheme w1ll1 n sequc11c0 of wc1gl1111u
side B nt '-:1th a physical balance gives o least numb01 of we1gh1ngs. I c1ch wo1ghing
and side A< side B A ne of the three outruts s1do A side 8 s1do A'-
· . In essence· the
defective c om sequence
pr bl . such we·19 h ing cxpernnenls sl1ou lcl lend 'us to th o
of
se~uence of outputs in ea~h expe~ em is to identify the defective coin mc1l<111g uso of tll 0
T his relat es t o a classical co . . of we1gh1ng wi·111 minimum numbo1 of cxpe1imonts
nment
minim um Iength for either mmunicatIon
st problem o f encoding· symbols with codcwo1ds of·
communication is called dat orage or transm1ss1on of info1 motion 1 his problem in
by th e Sh annon entropy th a compression
t b . source co d.ing . D ala compression is govemocf
or
h ere can be modeled a, e IimI elow which a so urce canno t be compressed. The puzz le
. s a source compression bl
mInImum number of we· h' pro em where th e entropy provid es th e
19 Ings needed

2 · Confused traveller
In this puzzle the traveller is needed to . . . .
The kiosks provide logical outputs to his mak~ a binary dec1s1on of choosing the right path .
these outputs are reliable He h t queries. However he may not be c:iware of which of
path he needs to take Th . as o come up with a right logical question to determine th e
. is is equ ivalent to des1gn1ng a logic circuit or comin u with a
Boo lean function based on the funct1onal1t1 es of th e kio sks provided Th1·s ·is ll1 g pd I .
r' · I f d. · I · · · e un e1 y1ng
P IncIp e o 1gIta logi c design which is extensively used in VLSI chips.

3. Firecrackers and Time bombs

The puzzle on measuring
. a time .span
. ·
of 15 minutes by burning thre ad s ·Is an enigmatic.
r~ph~asal of ~ considerably non-tnv1a~ problem faced while designing VLSI circuits. VLSI
circuits have interconnects between d1ffe~ent _elements which add to the delays in th e chip
and thus affect the speed of the IC. Est1matIng the delay is a key requirement in Timing
analysis to design synchronized VLSI blocks. The ECE department at II Sc does some
ground-breaking research in the fields of Micro-electronics, Analog and Digital VLSI with
research ranging from device physics to designing VLSI circuits.

4. Of blood and wine

This puzzle is motivated by a concept known as group testing . Group testing has its roots 1n
combinatorics and its procedure involves breaking up the task of locating elements of a
set/collection into tests on groups rather than on individual elements. Group testing dates
back to World War 2, where it was used for screening blood samples for diseases. The
fundamental task of group testing is to recover a small distinguished subset of items f1 om a
large population while efficiently reducing the total number of tests (111easu1 ements). Group
Theory has been widely applied in molecular biology , genetic engineering, commun1cat1011
engineering,data forensics etc. Group theory can be utilized as a conflict resolution p1 otocol
in multiple access communication (MAC) , where multiple user s sl1are a com mon chonncl
 r1ncJ me• pro nP to coil, , ,011 <, G roup lht:01 bc1 s " an
co d<>-cJiv1•,1011 ,rn,ltip h" .7CC.t~Ss (C DMA) y ' ed algo11 thms me .:ilso employed ,n G3us s1
a popu lc1 , 1ad ,o comIr n InIc,'lt 1on techn ology .

S. Equc 'l trian can ter

da lc1 in . . . . .
r hn p ro l)lc> n, of "c,o rt1n9 " gIv13n t certo ,n order ,s very rmpoI tant ,n computing. Th is
pl1?.1 fo c..rn be 'iecn 15 1n

n u m be rs such th it ti~ :- 11 11 s ance of "parti a l soi tin g" wh ere it is requir ed to arran ge the 25
e ,,,g 1est th ree num be . • d .
ros t o f th e numb ,.,r
' · rs c1ppear In escen d1ng order at the top and the
•5
-.. s arc not relc v::i' nt · The re 1 d ..
com pw e m ore ti1 r.. nn a d1t1on al constraint th at it is not possi ble to
s
c1n o numb et s 'c1 t Onee. upp ose th e above opera tion needs to be
p e rrorm eci by . . , .
1
a og ,c cIrc uIt · Avo,l 'abl e comp on ent rs •
a s l a single ' co mparator" which takes 5
numb e rs · •
rnpu and outpu ts th e n um b e,.s sorte d in desce nding order. Every comp arato r
co s ts Rs C and . .
is of interest to desig n an
a l{lor,t l th r ~q~ur cs energ y of E joules per co mpari son . It •
:., im at m rnIrnIz cs th o· t0 taI cost and total energy consu mptio n of the circui t. If you
so 1ved th e p uzz le, you have done just th at!

6 . Pira tes of the Carib bean

have fun doing resea rch.
W ell , thi s w as just fo r th e fun of it. Yes!! We do

7 Th e ultim ate card -trick

the inform ation abou t one card using four
T h is p uzz le involv es n simpl e tri ck of encod ing
ation to be conve yed in the most efficie nt way
o th e r ca rd s. Th e magi cia n encod es th e inform
ian. This is the essen ce of one of the most
s u c h th a t it is decod ed accur ately by other magic
n as 'source coding '. One of the funda ment al
fund a m e ntal con cepts of comm unica tion know
sentation of data gene rated by a source .
probl e m s in co mmu nica tion is th e effici ent repre
ure of the inform ation th at is to be store d or
So urce c oding is all abou t studying the struct
using minimum numb er of bits . Repre sentin g
sen t o v e r a chann el and repre senting the data
n . Comp ressio n is usefu l becau se it red uces
th e inform a tion effi cientl y result s in comp ressio
Popu larly known comp ressio n stand ards li l--e
reso urces re quire d to store and transm it data .
sourc e coding .
Jpeg, mpe g , mp3 are all ba sed on conce pts of

8. A line of ants
intuiti ve that the numb er of ants on the sc3le
F rom a firs t obse rvatio n of the puzzle, it is
, as some of them shoul d fall off over the
d ecrea ses no matte r what , as time progr esses
e d ge. F urthe r, notic e that if supp ose there are
25 ants at prese nt, it does not matte r how t he
were orient ed . Proce sses in which the past is
re m a ining 25 fell off the sca le nor how they
t~rrned a~ Mark ov proce sses. _For e\.am ple,
ind ep e nden t of the future given the prese nt are
chain where in your next state will depe nd t.) O
th e s nake s and /adde rs game is a Mark ov
you reach ed there . We often mode l c ert~1":
wh e re you are at prese nt irresp ective of how
ge and queui n~ theor y as MJrh.ov, c,h.:i11: s ,, no
sy s te m s in comm unica tion netwo rks, data stora
of funda ment nl intere st. Analogou::-1\ . ht.re \\E'
th e lo ng-te rm evo lution of such proce sses are
ants to fall off the sc31e r.e the 10119 te1111
are int e reste d in how long it takes for all the
be havio ur of th e ants on the scale .
 1. Of scales and weights
You are given a physical balance and 12 identical looking coins out of which exactly 1 is
defective i.e.it is lighter or heavier than the other normal coins. You don't know whether it is
heavier or lighter. What is the minimum number of weighings you need to determine the
defective coin?

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2.
Confu sed travel ler ✓
A travell er comes at a fork on the road. He doesn 't know
which path to take to reach his
destin ation . There are two kiosks (A and B) on the roadsid
e each of which when asked a
questi on give directions at the cost of a Rupee . The travelle
r was warned that one of the
kiosks w as faulty and always gives the wrong answer. But
he doesn 't know which is the
faulty one. Moreo ver the travell er has only 1 Rupee : What questio
n does he need to ask and
to which kiosk so that he can find the correct path to his destina
tion?
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 3. Firecrackers and time bombs
You are given two threads(not necessanly 1dent1cal). Both of them take 1 hour each to burn
out complet ly but they burn non-uniformly I e. burning half of a thread won t necessanly
take half an hour It 1s requ red to measure a time span of 15 minutes How would you do It?

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 4. Of blood and wine
The King of a small country invites 1000 senators to his annual party. As a tradition,
each senator brings the King a bottle of wine. Soon after, the Queen discovers that
one of the senators is trying to assassinate the King by giving him a bottle of
poisoned wine . Unfortunately, they do not know which senator, nor which bottle of
wine is poisoned , and the poison is completely indiscernible. However, the King has
10 prisoners he plans to execute. He decides to use them as taste testers to
determine which bottle of wine contains the poison. The poison when taken has no
effect on the prisoner until exactly 24 hours later when the infected prisoner suddenly
dies. The King needs to determine which bottle of wine is poisoned by tomorrow so
that the festivities can continue as planned. Hence he only has time for one round of
testing. How can the King administer the wine to the prisoners to ensure that 24
hours from now he is guaranteed to have found the poisoned wine bottle?
 5. Equestrian canter
It is needed to determine the fastest three horses among 25 horses. At a single time, only 5
horses can be raced together. You are standing at the finish line and do not hnve c1ny device
to measure time . You can only see which horse came first, second etc. What 1s the 1ninimu111
number of races you need to determine the fastest three? (Assume t11ere are no ties)

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 6 - Pirates of the
Caribbean
1 OO
pirate s aboard a ship need to divide a treasure of 100
gold coins. The eldest pirate
propo ses an allotm ent of the 100 coins and if it is
agreeable to 50% or more of the
pirate s(inclu ding the eldest one) , then the division is accept
ed. Otherwise the eldest pirate is
throw n overboard the ship and the process repeats with
the second eldest pirate proposing a
schem e and this contin ues . If you are the eldest pirate,
what would be the division of the 100
gold coins you would propose to maximize your portion
of the treasure at the same time not
gettin g yours elf killed .

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 8. A line of ants
SO ants are put randomly on a (1 D)meter scale with individual orientations either to the left or
the right independently. They start moving forward at a velocity of 1cm/s. When any two ants
collide both of them reverse their direction . On reaching the ends of the scale i. e. either O or
100 they fall off the scale. What is the maximum time you need to wait for all the ants to fall
off"
 9. Ciphers and Secrecy
Decipher the following to obtain clues for some of the questions above. The ciphers are
explained in the next sheet.
1. Decipher the ciphers applied on the quoted letters.
• Hint for the 'EHMBRDTX' puzzle: (Playfair cipher, key : OPENDAY)
• You must •xWF\JYMCYKYATWYSHWEOYTJ' to get the solution. (Vigenere
cipher, key: ECEDEPT)

2. Decipher the quoted lec..tt~r~ j~oj>taJn ~ ,_clue for another problem.

• Hint for the 'EORRGDQGZLQH' puzzle: (Caesar cipher, shift: 3)
• 'U.HNRETOSEAESANEBRPETTIYRNI '. (Transposition cipher, key: 4)

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 Description of the ciphers
1. Caesar cipher
1
It is • mono-~1lph.:ib0t1c cipher wherein each letter of tho plainteyt is substituted by
c\110lbL~, lcttc, lo for rn lhc ciphertext. The subs titution is by shifting the plaintext letter by a
c01t<11n fixed number· to bt . ti . . . .
o ain 1e crpherlext. For example, rf the shift rs 2, the letter A 1s
rep, 8Scntcd by C, B by D and so on .

2. Playfair cipher
th
In is scheme, pairs of letters are encrypted, instead of single letters as in the case of
s st
rrnple sub itution cipher. Initially a key table is created. The key table is a 5x5 grid of
th
ctl~habets at acts as the key for encrypting the plaintext. Each of the 25 alphabets must be
unique and one letter of the alphabet (usually J) is omitted from the table as we need only 25
alphabets instead of 26. The sender and the receiver decide on a particular key, say
'TUTORIALS'. In a key table, the first characters (going left to right) in the table is the
phrase , excluding the duplicate letters. The rest of the table will be filled with the remaining
letters of the alphabet, in natural order. The key table works out to be -

T u 0 R I

A L s B C

D E F G H

K M N p Q

V w X y z
• First, a plaintext message is split into pairs of two letters. If there is an odd number of
fetters, a Z is added to the last letter. Let us say we want to encrypt the message
'hide money". It will be written as -
• HI DE MO NE YZ
If both the lett ers are in the same column , take the letter below each one (going back
to the top 1f nt the bottom) Example HI > QC
• If botll letters me ,n the same row, take the letter to the nght of each one (going back
to the left rf nt t11o fnr t11est right) Therefore DE ► EF
• If noit11t~r of the p1 cccdrng two rules rn e tru e, form a rectangle with the two letters ond
!Ok(-> 11,11 lotter s on tl1e 11011zontc1I opposite corner of the rectangle. Hence \\e haV"~
MO ,NU
• u..,1 ,,g tht"•sc• 11.1les, the result of tile l'nc.rvpt1on of 'h1cle nwney' \\Ith tho key of
tuw11nl5' would htl - QC n- zv
NU Ml~
o, cn1t trng m, I 1n-,f 111 c1pll1 r 1<1 ,s sl mplt 1s dc rno tho s ,mo procc~.-; 11, ft'•\'er~o Receiver
ha Ult OITlt kt y oncl C Ill CfOl\l(l If IU 1111 0 koy t ,tito, 111d th 11 t l elCf) pt my nies<::nges mode
u 1119 llmt koy
3. Viuomno c.ipt,or
This SCh ef'Y'e of c 1pncr
' - uses a text st .
shifts on +he Pa ntext ring as a re, which is then used for doing a number of
• Tre sender ard th .
. e receiver decide on a key. Say POINT' is the key. Numeric
representation of this i,- , · ,
r b e'/ IS 16 15 9 14 20 (The natural mapping of letters in the
:•P a et to numbers from 1 to 26).
.
• re sender Nants t 0 .
encrypt the message say 'attack from south east'. He wi ll
~h,.rarge pla·ntext and numeric rey as follows and shifts each plaintext alphabet by
• e nulT'ber Nritten b I
e ow 1t to create ciph ert ex t ass hown be Iow.
a t J
t a C k f I
r 0 m s 0 u t h e a s t
i6 15 9 I 14 20 16 15 9 14 20 16 15 9 14 20 16 15 9 14
Q I cio w A u A C p
G I D D H B u B H
• For decryption the · . . .
· receiver uses the same key and shi fts received c1phertext 1n
reverse order to obtain the plaintext
Q I C 0 w A u A C G I D D H B u p B H
16 15 9 14 20 16 15 9 14 20 16 15 9 14 20 16 15 9 14
a t t a C k f r 0 m s 0 u t h e a s t

4. Transposition cipher
It is another type of cipher where th e letters in the plaintext are rearranged to create the
ciphertext. The plaintext is written horizontally with a certain alphabet width . Then the
ciphertext is read vertically as shown. For example, the plaintext is "golden statue is in
eleventh cave". We arrange thi s text horizontally in table with number of columns equal to
key value.
g 0 d e
n s t a t

u e s

n e e V

e n t h C

a V e

The ciphertext is obtained by reading columns vertically downward from first to last column .
The ciphertext is 'gnuneaoseenvltiltedasehetivc'. To decrypt, the receiver prepares similar
table. The number of columns is equal to key number. The number of rows is obtained by
dividing number of total ciphertext alphabets by key value and rounding of the quotient to
next integer value. The receiver then writes the received ciphertext vertically down and from
left to right column . To obtain the text, he reads horizontally left to right and from top to
bottom row.