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A Solution for the Ten Letter Acrostic Puzzle?

Posted by Cliff on from the word-play dept.

rmo101 asks: "A story in the Times reports a solution to the ten letter acrostic square puzzle that has defied solution since the ancient Greeks. An acrostic puzzle comprises a square of letters where the arrangement of letters from words written in rows result in the same words appearing vertically in the same order. The ten letter solution, however, is not accepted by all as one of the words does not appear in a dictionary. Sounds like a puzzle in search of a fiendish algorithm for interrogating a dictionary. The ancient Greeks believed that the solver of the ten letter puzzle would become immortal. Anyone fancy their chances?" Of course, the Times article doesn't report the proposed ten-letter solution (they show a five-letter one), but they do mention the controversial word: "nonesevent". Are any of you interested in trying your hand at a better solution?

50 of 258 comments (clear)

  1. Article messed up the latin square by dascandy · · Score: 5, Informative

    The actual square is:

    SATOR
    AREPO
    TENET
    OPERA
    ROTAS

    Which is the vertical flip of the stories' version. This one spells out the sentence in the same direction as Latin would be written (top to bottom). Also, this one generates more hits on google, with 19900 versus 1320 hits (with "SATOR AREPO" versus "AREPO SATOR").

    1. Re:Article messed up the latin square by dascandy · · Score: 5, Informative

      And the 10-word squares can be found at http://www.gtoal.com/wordgames/wordsquare/BENCHMAR K

      The probable solve:

      discu ssing
      incan tator
      scarl atina
      carni tines
      unlik eness

      state swren
      satin weave
      itine rates
      nones event
      grass nests

      What's up with slashdots lameness filter? The solution is lame now?

    2. Re:Article messed up the latin square by Bloater · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This one is also curiously palindromic, with lines of reflectional symmetry at 45 degress and 135 degrees, and rotational symmetry.

    3. Re:Article messed up the latin square by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Sorry to disappoint, folks: the 10-squares in the file you mention above were not discovered by my program - in fact there's a very small word list also in that directory ( http://www.gtoal.com/wordgames/wordsquare/update.1 0.txt ) which contained words known to make 10-squares, which I was using as a Q.A. check for my code. (Hence the filename 'benchmark')

      The square mentioned in the Times was discovered quite a few years ago, as you mentioned - however it was indeed discovered by Ted, who is a likeable is somewhat eccentric old buffer with a monomania for word squares.

      What you may find interesting is the work we've done since on multi-lingual tensquares - see if you can find any of the articles by Rex Gooch or Ross Eckler. (eg http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb346/is_200 408/ai_n5540701 )

      The privately-produced magazine Wordways has published the more interesting work on the subject.

      It's not especially interesting from the computer science point of view, although the size of the problem at 10 or 11 does make it something worth doing on a large distributed system.

      Best regards

      Graha Toal

  2. Lifetime of immortality? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    The creator of the ten-letter acrostic would acheive "a lifetime of immortality"...

    that's useful, hm?

    1. Re:Lifetime of immortality? by Tony+Hoyle · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's the same as a 'lifetime guarantee'.

      Once it fails, that's the life over, hence no guarantee...

    2. Re:Lifetime of immortality? by Hurricane78 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Isn't it actually *more* intelligent to use shortcuts, since it allows you to finish a task quicker. This again allows you to do more complex tasks and more work in the same amount of time. So you archieve bigger targets than anyone not using that "shortcuts".

      One example would be program libraries. Just try to do something large without them. ;)

      Of course you could still do the same amount of work than before while using shortcuts, resulting in what you call "bottom line driven mindedness". But you *can* do more if you want to.

      So "mindedness" does not have to result from "shortcuts", does it? ;)

      On the other side a wise man once said: The amount of intelligence on the planet is constant. It's just the amount of poeple that rises. (no exact quote) ;)

      So i recommend just being happy that you - evolutionary - will be the most successful one if you are "top line driven" *and* use use shortcuts. :)

      And one final thing: I totally agree with you if you wanted to say that today poeple just get lazy and stupid.
      But why is this so?
      My actual thought - based on what i know - is that there are three causes.
      1. The more poeple you have, and the more comfort they have, the less hard it is to survive, making you lazyer.
      2. Big companies create a feedback loop of stupidness by making their products and services easyer and easyer, allowing us cause 1, forcing them to make even more easy stuff to expose from others.
      3. Governments act too focused on short-term things so they don't see that good education is probably the best thing to stimulate economic growth, even if it's a long-term investion. And because the government is made out of poeple that got education from a former government, this also creates a negative feedback loop.

      My final thought - so i can also come up with a solution - would be, to
      1. invest the most of a country's budget to education and so investing - indirectly - in pretty much everything positive, and
      2. creating an evironment where companies can expose themselves positively from others by creating more advanced products including simplified versions of older products and services as parts, and so making life easyer while still hilding a minimum level of expected intelligence.

      if poeple weren't lazy as a basic rule of evolution, then you could leave away the second point. Bbut i giess this is just a unrealisitc dream. ;)

      So who wants to become our next president and find out how to realize this in practice? ;)

      --
      Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
  3. Solution to the solution by jerometremblay · · Score: 4, Funny

    Change the dictionary.

    1. Re:Solution to the solution by AndroidCat · · Score: 5, Funny

      nonesevent: (n) A word which must exist to solve that damned ten letter acrostic puzzle.

      --
      One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
    2. Re:Solution to the solution by marcello_dl · · Score: 2, Funny

      But we already have a perfect language for such acrostic thingies:

      perl.

      Oh, and maybe whitespace

      --
      ---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
  4. The solution by alanw · · Score: 4, Informative
    This posting by Ted Clarke on the Yahoo! group wordgame-programmers announces his tensquare acrostic
    DISCUSSING
    INCANTATOR
    SCARLATINA
    CARNITINES
    UN LIKENESS
    STATESWREN
    SATINWEAVE
    ITINERATES
    NONE SEVENT
    GRASSNESTS
    </tt>

    There are two others mentioned, one of which contains the word "Orangutang", which is also mentioned in the Times article. Interestingly, this directory listing implies that the BENCHMARK file, which contains the above solution, was created no later than November 1999. Sorry - but I can't stop the ecode tage from inserting spaces into the text.

  5. Solution not valid by jurt1235 · · Score: 4, Funny

    The solution is not valid if the word does not exist in a dictionary. Does an encyclopedia count as a dictionary? If so I would say:
    Long live Wikipedia.
    Just add the word, and the puzzle is solved.
    Probably the ancient greeks solved it too once, since out of frustration comes the simple answer:
    AAAAAAAAAA
    AAAAAAAAAA
    AAAAAAAAAA
    AAAAAAAAAA
    AAAAAAAAAA
    AAAAAAAAAA
    AAAAAAAAAA
    AAAAAAAAAA
    AAAAAAAAAA
    AAAAAAAAAA

    --

    My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
    1. Re:Solution not valid by Timesprout · · Score: 3, Funny

      You solution intrigues me and I wish to subscribe to your AAAAAAAAAA.

      --
      Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
      What truth?
      There is no dupe
    2. Re:Solution not valid by jpetts · · Score: 2, Funny

      Perhaps he meant the CamAAAAAAAAAA?

      --
      Call me old fashioned, but I like a dump to be as memorable as it is devastating - Bender
    3. Re:Solution not valid by flatface · · Score: 2, Funny

      Maybe he was dictating?

  6. What's wrong with "nonesevent?" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's a perfectly cromulent word.

    1. Re:What's wrong with "nonesevent?" by millette · · Score: 5, Funny

      It embiggens clarity.

  7. Easy, heres one with a 2 byte wordsize: by republican+gourd · · Score: 5, Funny

    0000000000000000 - (lameness filter
    0000000000000010 - sure is great
    0000000000000000 - there are carrots
    0000000000000000 - on my plate
    0000000000000000 - I have a buick
    0000000000000000 - which I hate
    0000000000000000 - I cut my kittens
    0000000000000000 - into bait
    0000000000000000 - la la la la
    0000000000000000 - lameness filter
    0000000000000000 - is this enough yet?
    0000000000000000 - I realize the kitten line
    0000000000000000 - may be a bit offensive
    0000000000000000 - I'm a supporter of felinism, I swear
    0100000000000010 - I just think that a kitten's place
    0000000000000001 - is in the kitchen)

    I don't see the big deal. How is this one of the big puzzles in computer science again?

    1. Re:Easy, heres one with a 2 byte wordsize: by swilde23 · · Score: 4, Informative

      What's the difference in computing a square where each position can be 1 of 2 values, vs 1 of 26??? We should only have to deal with the upper half of the square (as it needs to be diagonal)

      So, for a square of size 10 you are looking at 55 open positions. The binary case has 2^55 possibilities. A mere 36,028,797,018,963,968 different squares that need to be checked. If you only use 26 letters you are looking at 26^55 different squares! That's 6.66091878 × 10^77 different squares. Even on a network of computers (seti@home, supercomputers, whatever) that is still going to take a loooong time.

      The problem itself is super easy to run through a computer, it just takes years and years of time to compute. It's the same reason that the major encryption schemes still work. Their formulas may be known, but if you don't know the factors of a number with a thousand digits in it, you can't break it. The real kicker is no one has developed a method for finding factors quickly (at least quickly enough to make encryption obsolete!)

      --
      There are 10 types of people in the world. Those that understand this sig, and those that beat up people who do.
    2. Re:Easy, heres one with a 2 byte wordsize: by caffeinemessiah · · Score: 3, Interesting

      That's not quite correct. The state space of this problem is greatly reduced because you're constraining each row or column to be a word from the dictionary. As a result, you don't have a choice of 26 for each grid cell, or 26^10 for each row or column. If you use a 100,000 word dictionary, you're looking at approximately 100000^10 choices for the whole puzzle, which is large, but not completely unmanageable.

      --
      An old-timer with old-timey ideas.
    3. Re:Easy, heres one with a 2 byte wordsize: by dslauson · · Score: 2, Interesting
      "I don't see the big deal. How is this one of the big puzzles in computer science again?"
      Yeah, that seems to be a common sentiment here. That's because apparently nobody here took an algorithms class.

      Yes, it wouldn't be that difficult to create an algorithm that would theoretically solve this problem. I say "theoretically" because this assumes that you have infinite time and infinite memory.

      Exhaustively testing all the combinations from a dictionary of 10-letter words would have such an astronomical computational complexity that even the fastest computers or clusters wouldn't be able to do it in a lifetime.

      That's not to say that there's no such thing as an algorithm that could do it in a different way, but that's the challenge, isn't it? Coming up with heuristics and filters and such so that it could be done in a reasonable amount of time is harder than it sounds.

      Give it a shot. I'm sure you'll see what I mean.

  8. Just wait a year by Animus+Howard · · Score: 3, Funny

    Next year's English Oxford Dictionary will have an entry for that last word.

    "Noun;The only word in the 2005 ten-letter acrostic solution which did not appear in a dictionary at the time."

  9. Attention, this is the NSA by martinultima · · Score: 2, Funny

    We at the United States National Security Agency hereby order you to stop posting on this thread immediately. The solution to this puzzle is clearly of great value to our national defense and therefore is to be used only with proper authorization from us. Big Brother is watching, and any further discussion will be appropriately terminated. And yes we will know. Now get back to work finding some more prime numbers, we need those too.

    --
    Creative misinterpretation is your friend.
  10. Abra-Melin? by calharding · · Score: 4, Interesting
    This brings to mind something I read once about the "Abra-Melin" squares connected to the work of SL Macgreggor Mathers and Aleister Crowley.

    One which stuck in mind goes as follows:

    ALLUP
    LEIRU
    LIGIL
    URIEL
    PULLA

    When ritually consecrated they are said to be capable of producing magic effects; at least according to the mystics.

    --
    Before enlightenment - Code C, read Usenet, play NetHack. After enlightenment - Code C, read Usenet, play NetHack.
    1. Re:Abra-Melin? by calharding · · Score: 2, Interesting
      I fully agree, and even though I don't put much stock into this kind of thing, I do find it fascinating and never intended to seem flippant about it.
      That being said, I've never actually read any Abra-Melin grimoire. Instead, the article reminded me of a chapter from a book I read when younger entitled The Encyclopedia of Mind, Magic & Mysteries (isbn: 0-86318-639-4).

      The aforementioned "magic square" was printed on page 100.

      --
      Before enlightenment - Code C, read Usenet, play NetHack. After enlightenment - Code C, read Usenet, play NetHack.
  11. Anient Greeks? by ThatGeek · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The ancient Greeks believed that the solver of the ten letter puzzle would become immortal..

    Gee, um... I bet it's either less or more difficult to do it in Ancient Greek than in English. Or maybe they ancient Greeks did it in English too?

    Also, as the article states, one of his words does not appear in the dictionary. Now, maybe it's just me, but using words not found in the dictionary seems to make this task a little bit easier. He is basically saying "No one could solve this using real words, but I did using a (fake) one".

    --
    What are you eating? isItVeg?.
    1. Re:Anient Greeks? by tom8658 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Actually, languages like Latin and Greek are more suited to this type of puzzle than English. Because informal Latin and Greek have no enforced word order, you can use whatever words you like as long as they are in the correct cases and still form a sentence. Most languages now have deprecated their noun declinsions, or augmented them with a word order system (like German).

  12. Only the Fool... by headkase · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Reminds me of a bit of Hofstader's Metamagical Themas:

    Only the fool would take trouble to verify that his sentence was composed of ten a's, three b's, four c's, four d's, forty-six e's, sixteen f's, four g's, thirteen h's, fifteen i's, two k's, nine l's, four m's, twenty-five n's, twenty-four o's, five p's, sixteen r's, forty-one s's, thirty-seven t's, ten u's, eight v's, eight w's, four x's, eleven y's, twenty-seven commas, twenty-three apostrophes, seven hyphens and, last but not least, a single !

    There's got to be a piece of math that finds the positions where all constraints are satisfied as in the above quote.

    --
    Shh.
  13. A lifetime of immortality? by jesser · · Score: 2, Funny

    Does that mean you'll be immortal until you die?

    --
    The shareholder is always right.
  14. "nonesevent" not in google by RhettLivingston · · Score: 3, Funny

    The only Google hits on nonesevent have to do with this puzzle. The remarkable thing here is not the solving of the puzzle, its the solving of the puzzle with a word so completely fake that even Google hasn't seen its likes before.

    1. Re:"nonesevent" not in google by Vanye1 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      However, the word nones is.

      From m-w.com
      Main Entry: 4none
      Pronunciation: 'nOn
      Function: noun
      Usage: often capitalized
      Etymology: Late Latin nona, from Latin, 9th hour of the day from sunrise -- more at NOON
      : the fifth of the canonical hours

      A google define:nones query results in:
      # n the old Roman calendar, the ninth day before Ides. The 7th of March, May, July and October and the 5th of other months. See Calends, Nones & Ides
      www.highdown.reading.sch.uk/highdown/pupil/time/ca lendars/terms.html

      # the 5th or 7th day of the month, depending on the month, in Roman dating
      medievalwriting.50megs.com/glossary2.htm

      # ninth day before the ides (hence 5th or 7th of month, since Romans counted both ends of the number series).
      www.stockton.edu/~roman/fiction/vocab3.htm

      # the fifth of the seven canonical hours; about 3 p.m.
      wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

      Looks to me like this isn't a single word, rather a compound word. Perhaps it should be hyphenated, if written out...

  15. One slight difference by njfuzzy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If I remember correctly, there were about 20,000 words in the ancient Greek language. There are over 300,000 and counting in English. I think it's safe to say we're practically cheating. The problem was probably impossible in their time, but not in ours.

    --
    My Photography - http://ian-x.com
    The Deathlings (comic) - http://thedeathlings.com
  16. LanguageLog notes issues in the story by h4ter · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Benjamin Zimmer over at Language Log notes some problems with the story. Most notably:

    There's no evidence that the composition of word squares, let alone 10-squares, was a pastime in ancient Greece.

    And, there's the timeliness of the article:

    [I]t's unclear why the Times thought that this was at all newsworthy, considering that Clarke announced his discovery of the square back in April 1999, in an issue of his e-zine WordsWorth.

  17. german... by CaptnMArk · · Score: 4, Funny

    If you're German, you just put 4 5x5 solutions together and you are done :)

  18. They Were Right About the Whole Immortality Thing by tnsimonson · · Score: 4, Funny

    I solved this puzzle when I was a kid back in 352 A.D.

    --
    -I like my women like I like my coffee - tied up in a sack and brought to me by Juan Valdez.
  19. Sparse space by tgv · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's a sparseness problem. The space of two letter words is pretty full, but as the length of the words increases, the number of words does not increase as fast as the number of possible combinations.

    I've actually written a program to generate the Dutch solutions to the 5x5 puzzle somewhere around 1990, and it found several good solutions with a 210,000 word dictionary. However, it didn't find solutions for the 6x6 square. So I would expect that the 10x10 square is near impossible, unless wacky compounds would be allowed, since they are the only thing that can keep the letter combination filled...

  20. 10 Letter Words by sugapablo · · Score: 3, Informative

    Well, if anyone wants a good place to start, here's a URL with a big long list of 10 letter words:
    http://aaron.doosh.net/lexicon/10LetterWords.html

    --
    Sugapablo
  21. cruel by plopez · · Score: 3, Funny

    Tossing something in front of an audience with a larger than normal percentage of people with some sort of OCD. What were you thinking? I for one am getting tired of having to quit my jobs, drop out of school and deal with relationship breakups while i try to be the first to solve yet another stupid puzzzle... :)

    --
    putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
  22. Language? by Transcendent · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Wouldn't you have to solve it in ancient greek since any new language could just make up words to fit?

  23. Re:Jut make a program... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Maybe will we see emerging something like a Acrostic@Home grid computing program?

    Yes, but what happens when you have a million computers connected to each other and granted immortality?

    Skynet..

  24. English solutiosn by houghi · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Some English solutions are given How abut a GREEK solution in ancient greek? Just make a list of all 10 letter words and have a program a go at it. The worst that can happen is that it will be proven that there is no solution.
    Do the same for all other languages as well.

    --
    Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  25. Mod parent up by cryptochrome · · Score: 4, Funny

    Since slashdot has stopped giving me comment points for some reason.

    It's a simple enough solution - if you have a word with no meaning, just find one for it. Problem solved, the neologistical way!

    --

    ---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?

    1. Re:Mod parent up by jstoner · · Score: 4, Funny

      Nonesevent is a perfectly cromulent word!

      --

      'In knowledge is power, in wisdom humility.'
  26. Orangutang by frovingslosh · · Score: 3, Interesting
    So what's the problem with Orangutang? It seems like a perfectly valid word to use in such a "puzzle" to me.

    And the real solution to the problem seems obvious. Considering that the term "Cyber Monday" was only created two weeks ago but is now being reported by all the major news organizations as a real thing, it would seem to me that all one needs to do to solve this problem is to work out a solution where one or two of the words look reasonably well formed and sound ok even if they are in no dictionary. Then start using them, work them into some blogs, get them some mention in the news, and wait a year or two for them to show up as new words in the dictionary (what's a year or two to an immortal?) Problem solved.

    --
    I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
    1. Re:Orangutang by Scarblac · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Is "orangutang" the correct spelling in English? The original Malay is "orang utan".

      --
      I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
    2. Re:Orangutang by CastrTroy · · Score: 2, Informative

      You can't use human stupidity as an argument. Just because a lot people think that's how you spell orangutan, doesn't mean that's how you spell it. It's like saying you have proof that go exists, just because people believe him.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
  27. Wrong Language by FJ · · Score: 4, Insightful

    To be a valid solution to the ancient Greeks (and win the immortality prize), shouldn't the solution be using Greek words?

  28. No NES event? by PromANJ · · Score: 2, Funny

    NoNESevent? An event seriously lacking Nintendo Entertainment Systems?

    --
    The Chair Corp. comic(*00-12)
  29. Clarke's Conjecture by cagle_.25 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "Given any language resembling English, there must exist a word within that language whose spelling is nonesevent. I have a wonderful proof, which unfortunately cannot fit within the margins..."

    --
    Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.
  30. This was Catweazle's magic chant... by Traf-O-Data-Hater · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...if anyone remembers this late 60s / early 70s UK TV show, that is.