Strange math game...

http://personal.baker.edu/web2/cdavis09/roses.html

I have no clue how this works, but it seems quite interesting.

The name is supposed to have a lot to do with the solution, from what I hear.

Got it in two minutes. The name is the key.

what exactly does the name have to do with it? please, I’m totally clueless about plants.

“While some students would solve the problem right away, others would struggle all semester. It had taken Dr. Duke well over a year himself, and he would always explain that the smarter you were, the longer it took to figure it out”

I got it right my first two tries…

Ha, that’s kind of cool. You can get the answer in just a minute if you think creatively. I guess that math professor was a little dull.

Xwing1056

please define “think creatively” for this circumstance. I’ve been smashing numbers for about an hour and have only been right about 3 times.

You see, the dice represent capitalism and the “rose” is the conflict in the middle-east. Once you’ve deduced that, the rest of the puzzle falls into place.

I’ve noticed that it is often close to the sum of the two ends, but then sometimes I get values that seem like they are from way out of left field. me confused.

it also seems like it is the sum of a pair of dice, if a pair exists. odd.

Well, the professor said, the smarter you are, the longer it takes. I think he’s just covering up his lack of creativity - but it’s still something to keep in mind.

Xwing1056

Where’s the math?

I can’t even remotely create a logic behind this problem. I know too little about plants, and my knowledge of the middle east isn’t the most thorough (im not ignorant or anything, I know what Islam is etc), and I can’t think of any other relation to the name to make. Time to think.

however, another website with the same game had a hint; it seems the answer is always even. I still haven’t figured out why though.

Dammit, I’m clueless.

Edit: Ah! I think I have figured out PART of the mystery

5’s are worth ‘4’ in the answer. There is inconsistency with the other numbers though, but 6 favors 2 it seems

That’s partially right, IonMage. But if you get it, don’t put it, even in spoiler tags, please. People are still tempted to highlight :stuck_out_tongue:

Got it in about 40 seconds

Oh…duh. That took a little too long to figure out.

I think that the reason some people are ahvign trouble with it is the thread name. There is not really any math, except for basic adding. However, the adding isn’t really integral. It is more of a cretaivity and different way of thinking game. If you just think about flowers and dice as as rose, it is pretty easy.

THat took me a few minutes to think about it. Nice.

You need to be able to count to 20 tops. That’s it for math

Haw, that’s easy. All you have to do is count, nothing more, nothing less.

It is pretty simple really.

That was fun. It took me thirty minutes. I actually came up with “the answer is always even” on my own after several tries. At one point I was trying base conversions in order to find a pattern to the answers, as well as exploring the possibility that my answer was never right and that the answer it gave was somehow mathematically related to it. Not math, but creative reasoning is the proper term.

EDIT: Added quotes, corrected spelling.

Exactly why the title calling it a math game is misleading. It leads you to think of mathematical ways to solve the game when it isn’t math based. Those who it is taking awhile are probably taking a bit longer because of the title.