Tuesday, 29 April 2025

Arts: Playing with ideas and numbers


There is a joy in exploring ideas and puzzles which can all be solved, if you tackle them the right way. Quite a lot of this blog is about puzzles and numbers, so it’s mostly logic, mathematics and computing.

Here is some easy stuff to get you working

Can you match this?

Here are some very old puzzles that use match sticks to do mathematics with Roman numerals. As we can see, an Italian mathematician called Fibonacci did not think using Roman numerals was a good idea, but I think he would have solved these challenges, anyhow.

You need to have some skill in both mathematics and Roman numerals. Remember, as always, that there has to be a solution (or maybe more than one solution). You can move one, and one match only to make a true equation. The first question has at least three solutions:

A puzzle in Roman numerals.

Here are some answers:



For the rest of these puzzles in this entry, though, there are no answers given, until you turn to the next blog entry. In each case, you have to make a correct sum.


Puzzles 2 and 3.

Puzzle 4 This calls for a close approximation, and that’s a hint!

Puzzle 5 is more mathematical: convert this to a value of one by moving one match.

It’s all about thinking logically, and that’s where we go in this blog.

You can find the answers to the puzzles here, but try your hardest first.

To search this blog, use this link and then use the search box

Another way: use the index!


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