Given once, 2022
Problem Solving with Python
Classic puzzles, cracked with a few lines of Python
An introductory workshop, for undergraduates.
Abstract
Draft, not yet checked by meCan a few lines of Python crack a puzzle? At a workshop I ran at Paradox 2022 (the IIT Madras BS programme festival), the idea is to treat code as a thinking tool: write a short program to brute-force every case, test a hunch, or surface a pattern that is too hard to spot by hand. The puzzles themselves are built from small numbers and binary strings (including questions about how bit strings can overlap), and they show how fast an idea can be checked once you have written it down as code.