# I know. Another number sequence?

Another number sequence? Ludicrous! Succumb to the madness, give me a chance. Overcome your antipathy for these puzzles, although I’ll understand if you can’t. Man, there are just so many of these puzzles. Originality is hard to come by these days. Reputation is all anyone cares about these days, it seems. Eh, I guess this puzzle is very hypocritical. Maybe I shouldn’t be posting this… … …Awkward. I’m seriously regretting making this, oh well. Let the pain and suffering begin!

1, 3, 15, 17, 23, ?

Hint for text:

Synonyms, Homonyms, whatever those are called

• Well every odd-positioned number $N_k$ in the sequence is followed by $N_k+2$ so my first guess would be that the next number is $23+2=25$? Though my guess is a bit partial. – Mr Pie Apr 8 '18 at 7:18

These are described by the rule:

Spell the numbers in English and write down the smallest odd number length of each:

one → 3, three → 5, fifteen → 7, seventeen → 9, twenty-three → 11

Two interpretations of the next value are:

AmE 101 (one hundred one) and BrE 3000 (three thousand) → thanks to @Jasen

1) The sequence 1, 3, 15, 17, 23, ... is not in the OEIS but it's a subsequence of the following two which are described as the smallest natural number requiring n letters in English:

A080777: 1, 4, 3, 11, 15, 13, 17, 24, 23, 73, 101, 104, 103, 111, 115, ...
A001166: 1, 4, 3, 11, 15, 13, 17, 24, 23, 73, 3000, 11000, 15000, 101, 104, ...

2) First answer was: BrE 101 (hundred and one) or AmE 111 (hundred eleven) missing 'a'/'one'.

3) Still no solution for the text but the initial letters give ALSO MORE MAIL so something hidden!

• You got it-now can you explain the text? :) – Quintec Apr 7 '18 at 19:19
• huh? are those constructions correct? isn't a or one required as the first word? – Jasen Apr 8 '18 at 1:02
• Thanks @Jasen - you're right! Also thecoder16 - I haven't solved the text. – Tom Apr 9 '18 at 10:18
• @Tom Added hints in the form of text and tags - I think you should be able to figure out the text now, you were on the right track. – Quintec Apr 17 '18 at 23:50

not fully satisfied with Toms answer I used this postgresql query

 WITH a AS ( select generate_series(1,100000) as a )
,b as (select substring(cash_words(a::money)
from '(.*)dollar[s]? and zero cents')  as b,a from a)
,c as (select a,b,regexp_replace(b,'[ ,]','','g') as r from b)
,d as (select *,length(r) as l from c)
SELECT DISTINCT ON  (l) a,b,l from d where l%2=1 order by l,a; 

3000

full results

       a   |                         b                          | l
-------+----------------------------------------------------+----
1 | One                                                |  3
3 | Three                                              |  5
15 | Fifteen                                            |  7
17 | Seventeen                                          |  9
23 | Twenty three                                       | 11
3000 | Three thousand                                     | 13
140 | One hundred forty                                  | 15
104 | One hundred and four                               | 17
111 | One hundred and eleven                             | 19
113 | One hundred and thirteen                           | 21
313 | Three hundred and thirteen                         | 23
3073 | Three thousand seventy three                       | 25
1101 | One thousand one hundred and one                   | 27
1103 | One thousand one hundred and three                 | 29
1115 | One thousand one hundred and fifteen               | 31
1117 | One thousand one hundred and seventeen             | 33
1317 | One thousand three hundred and seventeen           | 35
3317 | Three thousand three hundred and seventeen         | 37
13313 | Thirteen thousand three hundred and thirteen       | 39
17317 | Seventeen thousand three hundred and seventeen     | 41
23317 | Twenty three thousand three hundred and seventeen  | 43

Thankyou Jaap Scherphuis for help formatting the spoilers.

• yeah, when i said you got it, i meant the pattern, i didn't really look too closely at the answer – Quintec Apr 8 '18 at 14:05

1, 3, 15, 17, 23, ...
1, 3, IS, IT, ZE, ...
Season 1, Episode 3, IS IT ZE...
"IS IT ZE Butler?"