Questions tagged [open-ended]
OPEN-ENDED PUZZLES ARE NO LONGER IN SCOPE. Used when no answer can be guaranteed to be the last, best one. If a puzzle instead has a provably optimal solution, tag with [optimization].
93
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She Lia Squared: Our daughter asked, “How many words can it make?”
Our daughter recently conned my wife and I into purchasing interlocking foam squares for her bedroom floor. On each square is a different letter of the alphabet. To cover her entire floor we had to ...
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Find the longest string of words such that the (4 letter) end of one word is the start of the next [closed]
Here is an open-ended challenge.
Find the longest series of English words such that the final four letters of word $n$ are the same as the first four letters of word $n+1$.
Example
(3 words) ...
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2
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Longest "Cycle" word chain [closed]
Linked to This word chain will come back to me.
That puzzle got some very creative answers and comments. Although the puzzle itself took some work, I found it very interesting.
So here is a more ...
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5
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Pairs of anagrams where the two words sound and look very different [closed]
This is a question about pairs of anagrams capable of flavoring puzzles as memorable and surprising because the two words are so different.
One of my favorite such pairs is chesty and scythe. These ...
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18
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Find words with the highest proportion of a single letter [closed]
Thanks to JoeZ, pacoverflow, isaacg, Sp3000, Novarg, Ram, h34, and all those who contributed answers that have since been beaten. I've accepted JoeZ's answer since he has the most mentions on the list ...
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15
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Making π from 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 [closed]
There have been two other questions here and here that are similar to this one, but this changes the rules up a little.
Your job is to approximate $\pi$ using the sequence of digits (in order):
1 2 3 ...
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10
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Four fours to get $\pi$ [closed]
Four fours is a famous puzzle (made trivial with logarithms). For this puzzle, we take inspiration from Glen O's challenge from a few years back. The rules here are slightly different, but the goal is ...
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5
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Knight on the keyboard [closed]
You are given a QWERTY keyboard, and are allowed to choose where you wish to start. You are only able type in the same way a knight is able to move on a chessboard (but in this case, on the keyboard). ...
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votes
3
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Google Searches With no Results [closed]
What is the shortest string of letters that yields no results in a Google search?
When answering, please use the NATO alphabet in order to prevent the string from becoming a search result.
Scoring:
...
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14
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3
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Forced selfmate in n-moves [closed]
I assume most people on PSE know a bit of chess
With white to move, this is checkmate (1. Qb7#):
That's boring. Let's try something more interesting. With black to move, black can FORCE white to ...
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7
answers
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The most words that can be made by successively adding one letter to the original word? [closed]
What is the largest number of words that can be made by just adding one letter to the original word, where each iteration is a meaningful word? E.g.
...
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11
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Longest sentence with each letter repeated n times [closed]
Inspiration:
This question was inspired by Word sets with no repeating letters
Rules:
Sentences can be of any length.
Every letter used in this sentence, must be used n times.
n can be any number.
...
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3
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From jafe to El-Guest [closed]
Largely inspired by From Puzzling to StackExchange by CodeNewbie
From jafe to El-Guest
jafe > cafe > cate > cete > cet > get > gest > egest > e gest > e guest > el guest
Rules:
In any move, you ...
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62
votes
19
answers
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Growing anagrams - What is the longest possible list forming a sentence? [closed]
This is a challenge for word-puzzle lovers. It might be a bit more of a game than a puzzle, but I think it is not limitless in it's answers, so a final answer could be found (eventually).
What is the ...
CommunityBot
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11
votes
8
answers
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Longest sentence where all words are anagrams of each other [closed]
Won, now own.
Rules:
A “word” is an entry on dictionary.com.
A “sentence” is any text that is grammatically correct, has a complete meaning in the English language, starts with a capital letter and ...
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3
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How many consecutive integers can you make using only four digits? [closed]
In the spirit of the classic four fours, I wonder what's the optimal set of four numbers?
Your goal is to make the most consecutive integers using four digits
of your choice. Pick four: $0,1,2,3,...
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A sentence with all numbers [closed]
Crazy thought.
Can you make an (grammatically correct) english sentence using english words which are all
numbers? Each word in that sentence must represent a number. I am
expecting a minimum 6 ...
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1
answer
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What is the Longest Meaningful Sentence U can make Using single letters only? [closed]
Some Examples:
I C U.
S I M A B.
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2
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Dreadful Dastardly Diseases, or Always Atrocious Ailments [closed]
So the other day, I was in a pharmacy and I saw that they had a "cold 'n' cough" medicine. The alliteration caught my eye, and I wondered it would be possible to create alliterative names with other ...
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Highest possible score my friend could earn in one Scrabble turn? [closed]
My friend has a great vocabulary but is also quote humble.
Every time we play Scrabble he wins easily. He says he tries his best, with one exception:
If the opportunity ever arose, he would never ...
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5
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Second-rate spelling [closed]
Find the longest word which can be spelled with the second letters of a group words in alphabetical order. An example with incomprehensible (16 letters):
a...
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7
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What is the longest rhymonym? [closed]
What is the longest pair of words you can find that rhyme and can also be synonyms / used to describe the same phenomenon?
For instance, spot and ...
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3
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I before E, except in the following sentences: [closed]
"I before E" is a common mnemonic that is taught for spelling certain English words, but this mnemonic is often wrong, as pointed out in this Language Log post.
The aim of this question is ...
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9
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Riddles/puzzles having answer hidden in the question? [closed]
Can you give any example of riddles or puzzles in which the answers are someway "cleverly hidden" inside the question?
I think that such examples are more common in word-related riddles, but maybe ...
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3
votes
3
answers
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Three coins for the fair king [duplicate]
Based on the question Eight coins for the fair king:
I saw a comment saying "There isn't a good solution known even with three coins in all cases".
So the challenge here is to try to solve ...
CommunityBot
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3
votes
1
answer
141
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A construction toy for children [closed]
Alice has an idea for a construction toy made from plastic. Each building block is in the shape of an uppercase letter of the alphabet. No other characters are to be used.
Children will ...
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2
votes
2
answers
172
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Heaven or Hell? [closed]
To decide whether you go to heaven or hell, your life is put on the balance. All depends on which way it tips.
John dies and waits in line to have his life weighed. Eventually he reaches St Peter who ...
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1
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Wicked Winding Words! [closed]
What is the highest number $n$ of $n$-letter words can you find that share this property? i.e. highest number $n$ that you can find (not found on any other sites).
I will accept the answer with the ...
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4
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Longest Word made from Smaller Words [closed]
Objective: Find the longest word, which can be made from concatenation smaller words.
Rules:
* Words (and smaller words inside) must be findable at dictionary.com
* Punctuation (for example ') does ...
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3
votes
5
answers
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Longest Calculator Word? [closed]
Current Best; Babingtonites = 5371207621898; 13 letters
We all know from fooling around with a calculator at some point in our lives, the when we turn a calculator upside down we can make words. For ...
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8
answers
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Craft the longest Scrabble sentence [closed]
This is another challenge along the same vein as similar challenges that have shown up on this site, requiring the puzzle to craft the longest possible sentence given a specific requirement.
What is ...
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11
votes
1
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Conway's Siege of Life
They are immortal and they are killing us. We may not be able to kill them, but we might be able to keep them occupied, distracted, for eternity. But we need to figure out how. Before there are no ...
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3
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Make a sentence with the most different uses of the same word [closed]
Background
I recently stumbled across the following grammatically correct sentence:
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
This sentence relies on the fact that the ...
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3
votes
2
answers
290
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Longest autological loop? [closed]
A word is said to be autological if it describes itself. This can be a property of both nouns and adjectives; for example, "noun" is a noun and "pentasyllabic" is pentasyllabic.
We can also construct ...
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3
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Make me a room-filling pattern! [closed]
So I need a new knitting pattern, but I figured this might be a nice puzzle.
I'm looking for a pixelated 2D-shape that can be used in a room-filling pattern (rotation and flipping allowed). The ...
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votes
4
answers
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What's my number? [duplicate]
I am thinking of an integer $1,2$ or $3$. You can ask me only a single question to which I can reply "Yes", "No" or "I don't know". I will be completely honest. What will you ask me to figure out what ...
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6
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Find English words with Sound of V or W? [closed]
Search and find some English words which when written starts with o and when speaking they pronounce with sound of v or w
lets see who ll find maximum words?
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6
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Challenge: Longest x-height word/sentence [closed]
A common puzzle is to see how to make sentences from the same letters, or the longest word in alphabetical order, etc. see here for a list.
Now 'the x-height or corpus size refers to the distance ...
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votes
18
answers
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Don't settle for a billion [duplicate]
While Artur is willing to settle for a billion, I'd like a much bigger return on my two matchstick investment.
Moving only two matchsticks, what is the largest number that can be created from the ...
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3
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English word with most valid substrings [closed]
What English word has the most valid word substrings, no repeats?
Examples (I may have missed some words):
AIRSPACES: a, i, air, spa, space, spaces, pace, paces, ace, aces
DEMONETIZED: demo, demon, ...
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Infinitely long loaf of Bread [closed]
You are visiting your old friend Mike at Infinitely's Baking Shop. Just
as you arrived, he was taking out a fresh, infinitely long loaf of
bread. Both of its ends extend infinitely long in a ...
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votes
4
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Constructing 0.35 Unit Length
The Problem
The medieval equivalent of Bob the Builder has a new job offer: He is to build a box with the measures of $0.35$ units by $0.35$ units by $0.35$ units for a king.
There is a little ...
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3
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Find the most MissSpellable word, but in a good way? [closed]
Most MissSpellable Word - English?
I'm not a native English speaker but I tend to keep an eye on my spelling and grammar.
I recently misspelled "throw" as "throe", which, to my surprise, was a real ...
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4
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Challenge : Create a star shaped crosswords (Smaller numbers of distinct letters wins !) [closed]
Rules:
Create a star-shaped crossword using 6 letters English words.
Clues for the crossword is not needed.
Use common English words.
Direction for diagonals is TOP to DOWN.
Direction for Horizontal ...
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13
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Playing "Guess a Number" with myself
I want to play a game where one person thinks of a number and the other tries to guess it, but I want to play this game by myself.
The puzzle is to come up with a way to play this game.
Rules (have ...
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21
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3:3! It's a football score! [closed]
Given to me, by a friend:
How would you make 20, using two threes?
You may use any basic operation. And others, such as square roots (the symbol), factorials, etc. Any operation is allowed.
Just ...
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votes
1
answer
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Any twelve year-old can answer this question [closed]
Come up with a question between five and ten words long with an answer that contains more than three times as many unique words as the question, does not contain any of the question words, and does ...
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2
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MathJax: ones and zeros
Do or do not, there is no try. — Yoda
Here is another MathJax puzzle. The Starring MathJax puzzle involved handling numbers in MathJax, even though there are no count registers or ...
CommunityBot
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7
votes
1
answer
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Character Navigation
Consider the following grid of streets with roadblocks:
If you are facing in the direction of the arrow and want to get to the dot, the highlighted path is the shortest:
This traces out an L.
Let'...
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4
votes
1
answer
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The Autonumerigram Challenge [duplicate]
Some phrases both refer to a number, n, and are comprised of n alphabetic characters. I call any such phrase an autonumerigram.
For example,
four has 4 letters
seven plus seven has 14 letters
...
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