On 3/22/16, Warren D Smith <warren.wds@gmail.com> wrote:
http://blog.pizzahut.com/flavor-news/national-pi-day-math-problems-solved/
now posts answers to A & B. It says the answer to B is 12, not (as I'd said) 19, because "list" indeed meant "multiset" not "set".
Problem C is still listed as "unsolved" and no solution is posted.
"Jeff" objected to Conway's solution "12" of problem B. I had assumed that by "numbers" Conway meant "nonnegative integers." But Jeff assumed they meant "integers" and points out 12=3+3+2+2+2=18-2-2-1-1. Both have product=72. As opposed to Conway's 12=6+2+2+2=4+4+3+1 with product 48. Therefore, Jeff argues 12 is not a valid solution. But by that reasoning you could always add +2-2 to all sums, yielding same sums but product multiplied by -4. Therefore Jeff would prove there is no solution! Which would sort of allow us to deduce that Conway had not intended to allow negative numbers. (Part of the puzzles is figuring out what Conway meant.) My misinterpretation was more elegant since for it there actually is a unique solution... Anyway, funsters might want to work on C. Far as I can tell, I came closer to solving C than anybody else, but what I did evidently still is inadequate.