Puzzler's Elusion by Shasha Dennis

Author:Shasha, Dennis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Running Press
Published: 2010-10-20T16:00:00+00:00

Warriors of the Rapture

“My Dear Jacob,” the letter began.

“The twins managed to find out quite a bit about the Warriors of the Rapture,” Kate wrote. “Their symbol is a red cross rising from a base of red fire. Fire symbols give me the shivers. Anyway, they found the Web page of a young man who never achieved membership. Here’s how it starts:

“‘The primary criterion for joining the group is an unwavering faith in the predictions of the Holy Bible, especially of the teachings related to the Apocalypse,’” the Web site said. “‘Thanks to my spiritual bond with the Lord, I could not only quote from the Bible, but the polygraph showed that I knew as truth that God performed the miracles written there. Unfortunately, I fainted while taking the test of the ladder code.’

“I won’t quote you the rest, but will skip to the twins’ summary of the ladder code problem: There is a ladder with eight rungs. The code consists of climbing the ladder to the top in some particular sequence. The sequence consists of step sizes. Each step consists of going to the next rung (step size 1) or skipping one rung (step size 2). So, a possible sequence is 2, 1, 1, 2, 2. This means go directly to the second rung in the first step, then step to the third rung in the second step, then the next one, then up two (skipping a rung), and up two again.

“Nobody is expected to know the code (it’s changed for each applicant). The trick is to go through different codes fast enough so you don’t collapse from exhaustion and the judges don’t reject you out of boredom. It takes roughly 30 seconds per sequence.

“Look at the pattern: for two rungs there are two possibilities: 1, 1; 2. That is, go up one at a time or skip directly to the second rung.

“For three rungs, there are three possibilities: 1, 1, 1; 2, 1; and 1, 2.

“Before you think the pattern is super-simple, notice that for four rungs, there are five possibilities: 1, 1, 1, 1; 1, 1, 2; 1, 2, 1; 2, 1, 1; and 2, 2.”

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