Artificial Intelligence

In the UK, there is a popular gameshow called Countdown . The main thrust of the programme is to try to create the longest word from a randomly set of vowels and consonants pulled from two stacks of jumbled letters. Contestants get points for the length of the validated words and the individual with the most points - wins. For some light relief, there is a “Numbers Round”. In this round the contestants are presented with six initial numbers and are given a target to reach. The six initial numbers are split into two groups; small numbers, between 1 and 10; large numbers, 25, 50, 75, or 100. Instead of pulling from stack, there is a board containing 20 small numbers (2 of each option) and one of each of the large numbers. The contestant driving the round requests, for example, 2 large and 4 small and are presented with a legal combination based on the rules above. A random number is then generated between 1 and 999, which may or may not be possible, and the contestants are given 30 seconds to attempt to solve the problem. The contestants can only use the basic mathematical operations of (+, -, ×, and ÷) and the result of any individual operation must be a positive integer e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on. When a number has been used it cannot be reused, unless another copy of that number is still available. ...