QuikSand
03-06-2003, 10:11 AM
Okay, a few days ago I was fiddling around with the whole "build-your-own-word-search" idea. We already did the nice little puzzle trying to put in the word names of various numbers into a given-sized box. That went pretty well.
I couldn't get too far with this one, but maybe you can. My idea was: take the names of the twelve months, and fit them into the smallest word search possible, measured by rectangular area.
I pretty quickly got them all to fit into an 8x9 grid, with a total area of 72. Getting that far took just a little bit of cleverness, but it was fairly simple - and wouldn't pose much trouble for the minds here, I don't expect.
But, can you do better?
As an aside, I hadn't really thought much about a "rectangular" word search that was only 1 or 2 rows by 30 or 60 or something columns. I suppose that's technically still a rectangle, but it's not entirely within the spirit of the puzzle. So, I'll set an arbitrary rule - the two dimensions of the rectangular shape each have to be at least 4.
Anyway... have at it. Again, I think an 8x9 grid is pretty easy... but if anyone can squeeze it into a 7x9, I'll be impressed. And perhaps there's some other dimension that gets the job done... 7x10, 5x14, who knows?
I couldn't get too far with this one, but maybe you can. My idea was: take the names of the twelve months, and fit them into the smallest word search possible, measured by rectangular area.
I pretty quickly got them all to fit into an 8x9 grid, with a total area of 72. Getting that far took just a little bit of cleverness, but it was fairly simple - and wouldn't pose much trouble for the minds here, I don't expect.
But, can you do better?
As an aside, I hadn't really thought much about a "rectangular" word search that was only 1 or 2 rows by 30 or 60 or something columns. I suppose that's technically still a rectangle, but it's not entirely within the spirit of the puzzle. So, I'll set an arbitrary rule - the two dimensions of the rectangular shape each have to be at least 4.
Anyway... have at it. Again, I think an 8x9 grid is pretty easy... but if anyone can squeeze it into a 7x9, I'll be impressed. And perhaps there's some other dimension that gets the job done... 7x10, 5x14, who knows?