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Ponder This

November 2015

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Ponder This Challenge:

To mark the announcement by IBM CEO Ginni Rometty about a new era of cognitive computing (http://www.ibm.com/cognitive/outthink/), this month's Ponder This challenges you to create a uniquely solvable verbal arithmetic equation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verbal_arithmetic) using English words, whose result is WATSON, and which is composed of only these six letters.

Here are some (wrong) examples:

  • TATTOO-NOT=WATSON - insolvable
  • NOT*SON+ON*ANTON=WATSON - the only solution is invalid since it contains a leading zero in "ANTON"

Remember that different letter must have different numerical value.


We will post the names of those who submit a correct, original solution! If you don't want your name posted then please include such a statement in your submission!

We invite visitors to our website to submit an elegant solution. Send your submission to the ponder@il.ibm.com.

If you have any problems you think we might enjoy, please send them in. All replies should be sent to: ponder@il.ibm.com

  

Challenge: 25/10/2015 @ 12:00 PM EST
Solution: 01/12/2015 @ 12:00 PM EST
List Updated: 24/11/2015 @ 12:00 PM EST

People who answered correctly:

Dan Dima (27/10/2015 12:33 PM IDT)
Martin Husar (27/10/2015 03:01 PM IDT)
Radu-Alexandru Todor (27/10/2015 10:31 PM IDT)
Hamidreza Bidar (27/10/2015 11:09 PM IDT)
Federico T. Gimenez Molinelli (27/10/2015 11:44 PM IDT)
Gregory Giecold (28/10/2015 07:11 AM IDT)
Lorenz Reichel (28/10/2015 10:50 AM IDT)
James Dow Allen (28/10/2015 01:29 PM IDT)
Huafeng Jiang (28/10/2015 04:25 PM IDT)
Uoti Urpala (28/10/2015 05:42 PM IDT)
Stéphane Higueret (28/10/2015 10:00 PM IDT)
John Tromp (29/10/2015 12:46 AM IDT)
Alex Zdanowicz (29/10/2015 04:06 AM IDT)
Leandro Araújo (29/10/2015 07:39 AM IDT)
Kang Jin Cho (29/10/2015 08:52 AM IDT)
Suk Hyun Hwang & Kevin White (29/10/2015 08:08 PM IDT)
Robert Gerbicz (29/10/2015 08:19 PM IDT)
Shouky Dan & Tamir Ganor (29/10/2015 09:44 PM IDT)
Kevin Petrychyn (29/10/2015 10:01 PM IDT)
Clive Tong (30/10/2015 10:04 AM IDT)
Benjamin Lui (30/10/2015 02:07 AM IDT)
Johnny Waltos (30/10/2015 05:01 AM IDT)
Matthew Rips (30/10/2015 08:57 AM IDT)
Tomáš Jurík (30/10/2015 10:37 AM IDT)
Luka Zaplotnik (30/10/2015 11:34 AM IDT)
Don Dodson & David Dodson (30/10/2015 07:19 PM IDT)
Derrick Liu (30/10/2015 07:57 PM IDT)
Alan Murray (30/10/2015 10:24 PM IDT)
Franciraldo Cavalcante (31/10/2015 05:40 PM IDT)
Graham Hemsley (31/10/2015 06:23 PM IDT)
Motty Porat (31/10/2015 10:53 PM IDT)
Shirish Chinchalkar (01/11/2015 12:18 AM IDT)
David Greer (01/11/2015 01:30 PM IDT)
Raymond Lo (01/11/2015 02:37 PM IDT)
Kipp Johnson (01/11/2015 02:41 PM IDT)
Joseph DeVincentis (01/11/2015 07:50 PM IDT)
Alex Fleischer (01/11/2015 10:31 PM IDT)
Aviv Nisgav (01/11/2015 12:08 PM IDT)
Max Nepokroeff (02/11/2015 12:18 AM IDT)
Arthur Vause (02/11/2015 12:51 AM IDT)
Michael Rosola (02/11/2015 01:50 AM IDT)
Andres Trapanotto (02/11/2015 06:06 AM IDT)
Jens Voss (02/11/2015 03:28 PM IDT)
Phil Benamy (02/11/2015 07:49 PM IDT)
Nikhil Sahasrabudhe (02/11/2015 07:51 PM IDT)
Chumeng Zheng (02/11/2015 09:30 PM IDT)
Jesus Sanz (03/11/2015 12:37 AM IDT)
Jesse Rearick (03/11/2015 12:39 AM IDT)
Chuck Carroll (03/11/2015 03:24 AM IDT)
Umut Uludag (03/11/2015 01:06 PM IDT)
Hakan Summakoğlu (03/11/2015 03:25 PM IDT)
Nicolas Bitouze (03/11/2015 04:56 PM IDT)
Sergey Koposov (03/11/2015 06:31 PM IDT)
Ioan Marius Popdan (03/11/2015 10:35 PM IDT)
Liubing Yu (04/11/2015 03:05 AM IDT)
Vivek Nema (04/11/2015 11:17 AM IDT)
Eitan Levine (05/11/2015 12:00 PM IDT)
Larry Kearney (05/11/2015 05:00 PM IDT)
Dieter Beckerle (05/11/2015 05:49 PM IDT)
Adam Wear (05/11/2015 06:49 PM IDT)
Fabio Filatrella (05/11/2015 07:12 PM IDT)
Marcelo De Barros (06/11/2015 02:43 AM IDT)
Varun Ahluwalia (06/11/2015 04:14 AM IDT)
Nyles Heise (06/11/2015 05:35 AM IDT)
Vladimir Dorofeev (06/11/2015 03:38 PM IDT)
Jitesh Jain (06/11/2015 11:49 PM IDT)
Saurabh Agarwal (07/11/2015 11:09 AM IDT)
Andreas Puccio (08/11/2015 12:32 AM IDT)
Boris Kazimir Hostnik (08/11/2015 09:54 AM IDT)
Bart De Vylder (08/11/2015 02:43 PM IDT)
Andrew Breadmore (09/11/2015 03:31 AM IDT)
Shaleen Deep (09/11/2015 10:32 PM IDT)
Mathias Schenker (10/11/2015 12:34 AM IDT)
Bryce Herdt (10/11/2015 10:41 AM IDT)
Ty Norrish (10/11/2015 06:50 PM IDT)
Mukund R (11/11/2015 06:26 AM IDT)
Satendra Mani Tiwari (11/11/2015 06:44 AM IDT)
Andreas Stiller (11/11/2015 08:59 PM IDT)
Jörg Binder (12/11/2015 11:06 PM IDT)
Peter St. john (13/11/2015 02:38 AM IDT)
William Stewart (13/11/2015 03:04 AM IDT)
Simon Foster (13/11/2015 03:28 PM IDT)
Harald Bögeholz (15/11/2015 12:57 AM IDT)
Gary M Gerken (16/11/2015 06:36 AM IDT)
Natasha Priya de Sousa (16/11/2015 11:43 AM IDT)
Natasha De Sousa (16/11/2015 10:01 PM IDT)
Jesse Noyes (17/11/2015 01:34 AM IDT)
Srikanth Myskar (18/11/2015 01:14 PM IDT)
Jason Mah (18/11/2015 11:16 PM IDT)
Cody Pfau (19/11/2015 10:09 PM IDT)
David Dunkley & Avis Dunkley (20/11/2015 12:05 AM IDT)
Roberto Tauraso (20/11/2015 11:40 AM IDT)
ByeongYeon (Jackie) Ryu (22/11/2015 01:48 AM IDT)
Albert Stadler (22/11/2015 06:55 PM IDT)
Yan-Wu He (23/11/2015 02:11 PM IDT)
Di Luo (23/11/2015 03:12 PM IDT)
Shisen Luo (24/11/2015 06:26 AM IDT)
Armin Krauss (24/11/2015 04:14 PM IDT)
Nigel Brumpton (25/11/2015 08:48 PM IDT)
Anders Bisbjerg Madsen (27/11/2015 04:24 PM IDT)
Chris Shannon (28/11/2015 07:44 PM IDT)
Victoria Woo (28/11/2015 10:11 PM IDT)
Michael Schuresko (28/11/2015 11:17 PM IDT)
Rajesh Sathiyanarayanan (29/11/2015 09:46 AM IDT)
David Friedman (29/11/2015 05:20 PM IDT)
Erik Wünstel (01/12/2015 01:16 AM IDT)
Woosung Jung (01/12/2015 04:21 AM IDT)
Claudio Hüni (01/12/2015 10:13 AM IDT)