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Puzzle 397
Without using any reference material can you find the hidden countries?
In each case, the letter indicates the first letter of the country in question, the number represents the number of letters in the country.
For example, E7 would be England.
B10 E5 F4 F7 J5 L13 N9 S11 T7 Z6
Hint
What must the middle midday temperature be? Remember that the temperatures are in degrees Celsius.
Answer
The midday temperatures were -6, -2, 2, 6, 10 °C.
Each day the midday temperature increased by a steady 4 degrees.
Reasoning
As the temperature rose steadily each day, we know that the middle temperature (Day 3) was 2 degrees (because the average was 2 degrees).
Since Day 3 was 2 degrees, and there were two negative temperatures, we know that the daily increase must have been at least 3 degrees (otherwise Day 2 would not have been negative).
If we check a daily increase of 3 degrees, the sequence would be -4, -1, 2, 5, 8, but this doesn't work as the product is less than 500.
If we check a daily increase of 4 degrees, the sequence would be -6, -2, 2, 6, 10, which does match all of the requirements.
If we check a daily increase of 5 degrees, the sequence would be -8, -3, 2, 7, 12, but this doesn't work as the product is more than 2000.
Any larger increase makes the product even larger, so we can stop checking.
So the only possible answer is -6, -2, 2, 6, 10.
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Puzzle 400
If cat and a half can catch a mouse and a half in a day and a half how many mice can 3 cats catch in 3 days?