What does this number sequence mean?

00 03 18 36 54 59 71 72 92 99 84 70 70 61 42 42 28 13 33 33 36 37 58 77 78 98 89 74 60


The number sequence represents a phrase, containing only lower-case letters and spaces (up to 27 unique characters).

Note: Usage of 2-digit numbering was for aesthetics, it doesn't require knowledge of hexadecimal or anything similar.

Hint 1:

Duplicates have meaning.

Hint 2:

The length of the phrase is equal to the length of the sequence, minus one.

What is the phrase?

1 Answer

CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION

Explanation: The increment from one character in the sequence to the next gives the dictionary value for every letter of the answer. The first character in the sequence is 00 (null) as a starting point - hence the phrase length equals sequence length minus one (hint 2). Repeated characters yield a zero increment, which can be interpreted as a blank space (hint 1).

• Welcome to Puzzling! Is this the answer to the problem? If so, please motivate it, else delete it! – leoll2 Jun 9 '15 at 11:26
• Thanks for the welcome! The increment from one character in the sequence to the next gives the dictionary value for every letter of the answer. The first character in the sequence is 00 (null) as a starting point - hence the phrase length equals sequence length minus one. – dosquarts Jun 9 '15 at 11:28
• Huh, that's interesting! Definitely edit it into your answer; that's valuable information. The more explanation the better! And welcome to the site! – user20 Jun 9 '15 at 11:32
• I'm curious if you simply spotted the answer, or had to try other methods first. – Hexicube Jun 9 '15 at 11:39
• I suspected what it was - to check it, i opened up MS Excel, and typed every character in a separate cell on the same row. In the next row, i displayed the result of (n+1) - (n) and started checking manually to see if the message made sense... it did :) – dosquarts Jun 9 '15 at 11:43