newageslacke

Yes, this essentially how one would go about doing this. You need to determine one headline though in order to take advantage of the relationships. You can use something that is called chaining at first, and you mentioned something that I believe is called geometric chaining.

I solved the problem, thanks for the help. I ended up using Lagrange Multipliers.

I am doing max/min problems in calculus. The problem is to maximize the volume of a rectangular box with edges parallel to the axes that can be inscribed in the ellipsoid x^2/4 + y^2 + z^2/9 = 1

This is a monthly puzzle published where I work. I find them pretty fun so I decided to share them. If anyone likes these I can continue to post these monthly as they come out. There are 5 Newspaper headlines (from the Maryland area) that are encrypted. I am not sure what the encryption is called, so I will show you an example of how it is encrypted. This is close to impossible without knowing how it is encrypted. you start out with a key, set, and hat. the set is always a word with five letters, the hat is almost always a word with twelve letters, and the key is usually a word 7 letters or more. The three words used for the key, set, and hat are all related. Let's start with a set Vague, key Neutral, and hat Noncommittal. We take the hat and write it out. We number the letters alphabetically. N O N C O M M I T T A L 7 9 8 2 10 5 6 3 11 12 1 4 Next, we take the key and spell it out below going across. We fill in the letters we didn't use at the end. N O N C O M M I T T A L 7 9 8 2 10 5 6 3 11 12 1 4 ---------------------------- N E U T R A L B C D F G H I J K M O P Q S V W X Y Z Next, we look at where the 1 is and see that the first two letters is FW; we then find 2 and add TK. Now we have FWTK. Continue doing this until you finish all the columns. You should have F W T K B Q G X A O L P N H Y U J E I Z R M C S D V. Lastly we take the set, and write the word vertically under the F. Each of the following under the first one (FWTK...) is an offset, same order different starting place. F W T K B Q G X A O L P N H Y U J E I Z R M C S D V V F W T K B Q G X A O L P N H Y U J E I Z R M C S D A O L P N H Y U J E I Z R M C S D V F W T K B Q G X G X A O L P N H Y U J E I Z R M C S D V F W T K B Q U J E I Z R M C S D V F W T K B Q G X A O L P N H Y E I Z R M C S D V F W T K B Q G X A O L P Y N H Y J The actual value is the top row, so If in the first puzzle, you have a V, it is decrypted to F. If it is the second puzzle, A decrypts to F, and so on. So, now that this has been explained, here is the puzzle. Headline 1: KQFMQVZL ZR-MKS XZEAZM VQHZ EWWJMFVO KJHFV Headline 2: U EJY WOJ DFV HJBB LMFEJ SVUHXKEI SVUDDKH SKJ-WLO Headline 3: WSYMHL BYMWFKMJX LPMMJMWL LSIK TVR TMH HVHM PVXML Headline 4: QUOOHMWOJSSO SF OWJ DKVQO FE AKI RKI LVFTJHS Headline 5: LBDYBGX CAXJNDT SAJ NBDPW OSD LPBZI ODGFBW Good luck decrypting, and finding the set, hat, and key. If you need any clarification on how it is encrypted, just ask.