I'm confused by today's daily: #B52F2TL. It seems to me that one of the verifiers is always redundant.
The verifiers are:
A: Purple is even or odd
B: Number of 1s in the code 0/1/2/3
C: Sum of all numbers even or odd
D: Sum of yellow and blue compared to 6: <6/=6/>6
E: No pairs in the code / a pair in the code
Spoilers follow:
The verifiers are:
A: Purple is even or odd
B: Number of 1s in the code 0/1/2/3
C: Sum of all numbers even or odd
D: Sum of yellow and blue compared to 6: <6/=6/>6
E: No pairs in the code / a pair in the code
Spoilers follow:
Am I wrong in my understanding of the rule that no verifier can be redundant? Sometimes I'm kinda struggling with it, but my definition is that any verifier has to be either queried or has to play a part in your deductions eliminating some of the answers just by the fact that the verifier is present. In this case verifier A or C breaks that rule.It seems to me that A or C is always redundant - you only need one of them.
My logic is as follows: the sum of any pair is always even. So, if there is a pair, then if it is yellow=blue, then the parity of purple (verifier A) will solely determine the parity of the sum of all three numbers including but not limited to the case where purple=yellow=blue making verifier C redundant (or vice versa). Therefore, all three numbers can't be equal to one another and if there is a pair present, it must be purple with another color.
But by looking at the verifiers we can notice that there is nothing distinguishing blue from yellow - any solution where yellow=x and blue=y will also work with yellow=y and blue=x. Therefore yellow must be equal to blue.
That's a contradiction.
The proposed correct answer was yellow=2, blue=2 and purple=4. Which is understandable, if you assume yellow=blue. By querying D you can tell if they are 2/3/(4 or 5). And by querying E you could tell if purple is the same with them. If it is, its parity could distinguish between 4 or 5 case. If it's not, then combining other verifiers we can find the value of purple just as well.