O T T F F S S E

A reader wonders what the next letter in the following series should be:

O T T F F S S E ...

Can I count on you to help them out?

The Red Herring

A 'Red Herring' is a plot device used in literature to distract the reader away from the main event of the story by focusing on a minor event or describing characters in ways that go against our sense of the way those character should be. In cryptography, a red herring is a second hidden message that is intended to be discovered more easily so that the real message remains hidden to anyone who might intercept the transmission and break the red herring code. Only the intended receiver would know the key to unlocking the real message.

The cryptogram below, with two hidden messages, is a prime example of a red herring. One message is fairly easy to decipher, especially if you were able to decode an earlier puzzle that appeared here: http://puzzlepage.blogspot.com/2008/01/find-hidden-message.html. The second message, the one that's the real message, is hidden using a different code that has been made to fit in the same grouping of numbers. This is an extremely difficult cryptogram to solve, so feel free to ask for hints in the comment section.


21941648698194164869819416486981
54961847952716486981947648697358
39114467658829115524463869851941
76487962174268859915413638294575
51947682873991174467835921746687
82992113426384971634855658399727
12432613829431624856389791172446
83953124636885997711344766849911
44758746436849618496184961849618
49361849618898184961849618496184
69819416486981941648698194164869
81961635248698194164869819416486
89915214466889912144668899114466
88279911446688995114466889911446
75879618496188921246648691144666
89921347658591134764869871924164
86921354456289291314419885991234
61839518465768533281559123134362
84931546687899361547678297124312
44951746678897194362778135951543
64856618399613949711429889811444
48896919466819961882828694114914
49981941698618994964219181649644


Good luck!

It's Hip to be Square

Arrange two of each of the digits 0 through 9 to form a 20 digit number. The number may not begin with 0. Then score the number as follows:

For every two consecutive digits that form a perfect square, score two points. For every three consecutive digits that that form a perfect square, score three points. A four digit square scores four points, and so on.

For example, if your number was 58738219024719503664, you would get two points for 49, two points for 36, two points for 64, and six points for 219024 for a total of 12 points. You may not count 036 as a three digit square.

What is the maximum number you can score?

M & M

What comes next in the following sequence?

1212210202001, 224000000, 11333311, 623351, 290221, ...?

A E F H I K L M N

A visitor to this site asks:

"I have the first part to a series of letters but I don't know how to finish the sequence."

The sequence starts out as:

A E F H I K L M N

Can you find the last 6 entries in this series for our fellow reader?

A Sequence of Numbers

Professor Egghead showed one of his graduate students the following 3 numbers:

1 5 9

and asked him "Do you know what the next one is?"

The student replied, "With only three numbers it would be very difficult to figure out the sequence but it appears to be an arithmetic series with each number being 4 more than the previous one."

Professor Egghead smiled knowingly and said "Some say the fourth number of the sequence is 3 times the second number, others claim it is the sum of the first three. Do you know the fifth, which is also the last number of the series?"

The student wrote four numbers on a piece of paper and was totally baffled as to what the last number could be. "Why would you think I should know this?" he asked.

Professor Egghead answered "Because you like to read."