Can I know what you’re trying exactly?
Thing I did before but a little different, I guess it still doesnt work.
Let’s write every single different possible number that starts with 5 and has 16 digits that does not include 0 until pictoshark murders us.
1 Like
I’m up for it! 
1 Like
5111111111111111
522222222222222
Maybe s is like reversed number like 6 and 9 or if you reverse 5 it kinda looks like 2, but there are 3 s numbers idk
The truth is out there
for (i=1;i<10;i++)
{
for (j=1;j<10;j++)
{
for (k=1;k<10;k++)
{
for (m=1;m<10;m++)
{
for (n=1;n<10;n++)
{
for (o=1;o<10;o++)
{
for (p=1;p<10;p++)
{
for (q=1;q<10;q++)
{
for (r=1;r<10;r++)
{
for (s=1;s<10;s++)
{
for (t=1;t<10;t++)
{
for (u=1;u<10;u++)
{
for (v=1;v<10;v++)
{
for (w=1;w<10;w++)
{
printf("5"+i+j+k+l+m+n+o+p+q+r+s+t+u+v+w+"\n", %d, %d, %d, %d, %d, %d, %d, %d, %d, %d, %d, %d, %d, %d, %d);
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
The coding gods are gonna kill me.
2 Likes
Wait this is so … simple.
But is it τ that is /16, since on the paper it is literally over the part that says “something over 16”.
I’m not sure where that’d bring us, I kinda don’t feel like trying any sort of maths, but it may help someone τ/16 or not…
Suddenly, into the room a stray Voyager ambled.
"Hello all, what’s the occasion?"
All stared at the man, they had never seen him in these games before.
“I see I’ve come at a bad ti… ooohh is this a puzzle? I do enjoy puzzles. Let me have a go.”
Alrighty so let me go over some of the stuff that we are already familiar with and I will try and see if something sticks.
- τ = 2π. Normally we think of π in terms of angles with π = 180°. Therefore τ = 360°. Hmmm this seems like a fair enough assessment. I feel like there’s something I’m neglecting but we shall proceed nevertheless
- There are nine buttons on the keypad, 1-9 inclusive. 5 has already been keyed into the pad for us
- There are 16 numbers chiseled into the wall above the keypad the first is unusual as it is the only one which does not have two digits. Other digits are also odd in that they have an ‘s’. What ‘s’ means is not told.
- We have a piece of paper with one side having a τ on it and the other saying “something over sixteen”.
So those are our facts. Let us think through a few things I find odd.
- There are nine different combinations of numbers (not including the 5) this would seem to suggest that there is a one-to-one correspondence between each combination and a key. However, this neglects the ‘s’ at the end of some combinations. Therefore we are left with a question are there unique ways of expressing particular keys? By this I mean is 08 different from 08s? Do they correspond to different numbers that we must enter? If so then they are not unique because they would overlap with another combination that we’ve already seen (for example 08s might mean the same key as 06). If they are the same then does s mean anything? Personally I would be more inclined to say they aren’t unique.
Having said that there’s something odd about that too. Certain digits are repeated several times. 00 is repeated three times and 01 is repeated twice. If there are non-unique ways surely there would be less repetitions? Unless perhaps some keys have unique digits corresponding to them while others don’t. - “Something” over sixteen, eh? Well it would seem like the something would probably be referring to either τ or the digits in the wall. As our sorcerer as proclaimed, this does indeed refer to a fraction and so there must be some numerator.
Supposing that ‘something’ was τ. We could then think about sixteenths of τ. In terms of angles this means 22.5°. If we were to accept this then certainly we might be able to come up with non-unique digits corresponding to keys on the pad. As most have thought we might have a center point about 5 and then rotate around a certain number of degrees in order to get all the keys. However this lacks something - a way to express 5. There must be a way to express 5 but not this way. - Another idea might be that the numbers are an ordered pair with 0 or 1 referring to something while the second digit refers to something else.
- ‘s’ is a curious beast. s is somethimes used in math to refer to the arc length of something. This might make it applicable but perhaps not. s could also mean something like ‘subtract’ though I’m not sure. The curious sorcerer has stated that the correct approach would make its meaning obvious.
Perhaps I should think about this differently. I shall now think of it as a mystery.
The voyager stares at the puzzle, “Well this does seem to be a bit of an odd math puzzle doesn’t it?” Suddenly his head cocks to the side and he stares into space for a bit. A small grin spreads across his face as he plans some mischief.
"Excuse me, but may I submit 5 as the answer?"
Again, all the gathered voyagers stare at this lunatic.
He answers the silent question. "Well you see, there’s something that bothered me. Nowhere do I see anything about the door being locked. For all we know the room might be open right now. If the door is open then I imagine that the code in the keypad right now would be the correct code to open it. There are several other things to recommend this. For instance, our dear host did not tell us the layout of the keys in the initial puzzle. However, he let slip that we had all the means necessary to solve the puzzle prior. This would seem to indicate that the orientation of the keys on the pad are not necessary to solve the puzzle. Therefore, our theory about rotating around the keypad is almost certainly wrong, or at least incomplete. Also we are told that the screen clears upon failure suggesting that it does not upon success. Again, this would indicate that the puzzle’s solution is already in the keypad.
"Perhaps this puzzle is not one of math at all. My dear sorcerer, if I am wrong then I must ask that you confirm a few things in red, if you please.
"One: The code that opens the door is 16 digits long
"Two: The numbers on the wall are not random and each sequence of digits, separated by hyphens, refers to a key which must be entered on the keypad
"Three: The mapping of digits on the wall to keys on the keypad is bijective (you’re a math person, you should enjoy this)
“I eagerly await your answer.”
2 Likes
Actually this is something I’m wondering about more…
Who is that even?
Hmm actually a bit more thoughts…
If we are even remotely on the right track concerning the idea that 5 is the physical starting point on the pad and the numbers are giving us directions to go from there…
Well the first thing implied is something like
Changing a single digit of the answer would require to change every of the 16 numbers that comes after that one in the sequence carved on the wall, including the digit that represents it.
Otherwise we are most likely on the wrong track, tho there’s also possibilities where this is right and yet we are on the wrong track heh…
So normally this leaves us in a group of 4 possibilities.
->Stationary result is possible, diagonal movement is possible (9 possible answers, tho that may potentially change depending on the position we are on the dial)
->Stationary result is possible, diagonal movement is impossible (5 possible answers, tho that may potentially change depending on the position we are on the dial)
->Stationary result is impossible, diagonal movement is possible (8 possible answers, tho that may potentially change depending on the position we are on the dial)
->Stationary result is impossible, diagonal movement is impossible (4 possible answers, tho that may potentially change depending on the position we are on the dial)
Leaving aside the s thing which may potentially become obvious if we get more on the right track, the matter then becomes that we have a range of 16 numbers that has to be converted into one of these bases in a way or another.
Going with the angle idea, normally a 360° angle is basically equivalent to a 0° at least as far as indicating a direction is, unless the angle itself is a movement.
That would seem to imply that the possible choices of the non converted into digits numbers range from 00 to 15, and having “s” versions of them being possible.
So I’m at least prone to think I was correct in my earlier assumption about this, but heh, who knows.
Maths is really not my thing.
Also…
Do we have interconnected pockets that leads to the same one single piece of paper, or do we each have that same piece of paper?
… let’s ignore this…
Wait…
I suppose that τ/16 = π/8. I’m not entirely certain what to make out of this, but it comes to mind that from a starting 0° it would lead to a maximum of half a circle, and thus the “s” could refer to starting the angling from the other direction, to reach the other half of the circle… So like clockwise vs counterclockwise (or vise versa).
But the chief questions remains that we have far more possible numbers, at least assuming this is correct (either ranging from 00 to 15, or 00 to 16) than the number of possibilities on the keypad altogether.
This leads to the assumption that the same digit from a given previous digit can potentially be attained with multiple ways of expressing it. If this is wrong the correct approach may be entirely different heh.
You could have the same answer while having a different sequence of numbers carved on the wall.
On a final note just to make sure…
This isn’t some dies irae inspired thing about encryption or whatever isn’t it?
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I suppose that τ/16 = π/8. I’m not entirely certain what to make out of this, but it comes to mind that from a starting 0° it would lead to a maximum of half a circle, and thus the “s” could refer to starting the angling from the other direction, to reach the other half of the circle… So like clockwise vs counterclockwise (or vise versa).
That’s what I was trying to do with it on my image. I just used angles to move from number 5, but I dont know if I did it right and if 00 is reset or same number. I just imagined it like this
123123123123123123123123123123123123123123
456456456456456456456456456456456456456456
789789789789789789789789789789789789789789
123123123123123123123123123123123123123123
456456456456456456456456456456456456456456
789789789789789789789789789789789789789789
and you just move with angles from starting 5, but maybe I did something wrong.
I kinda doubt you’ll answer this, but…
Let n be any random number that starts with 5, is 16 digits long, and doesn’t contain zeros.
@pictoshark From all possible random numbers n, is there any that would change the hyphenated number on the wall to contain a two-digit number that isn’t seen in the current number?
Reflecting further on the angle approach discussed before, ‘s’ cannot mean “stop”, signifying the same button being pressed twice, as that would result in an answer that is longer than 16 digits. “skip” would make the most sense, since it’d be required for it to be possible to move from a digit to any other digit. Furthermore, ‘s’ only appears in even numbers, which fits well with that theory. If ‘s’ appeared in an odd number, it’d disprove the idea.
Moving from a number to any other number would also be possible if wrap-around is allowed through the edges, but that removes the necessity for odd numbers, as the eight cardinal directions would suffice to reach any number in that case. It would also remove any purpose from ‘s’, as any other number can be reached without any extra operators.
The angle approach seems to leave no room for the same number to be pressed twice in a row, unless ‘s’ means something really strange. So, might as well ask even if there might be no response. Is 5566655555777777 possible to express with the encoding used in the puzzle?
Well, even if the answer to the above question was “no”, it still wouldn’t remove the 01-00 problem.
This question is already answered by this red (and the answer is yes):
Technically, that red only specifies that one different combination can be expressed, not that every possibility can be.
But I suppose that’s not how the red is meant to be interpreted.
as that “one different” is random, though, this does actually include every possibility, since we both don’t know how that number looks like.
Hmmm I think I get what you mean with that “map” bellow…
So it’s an idea of… hmm… I suppose I have to assume a starting point of the angle, let’s go with east as midsummer stated earlier, wether that is correct or not.
Starting point to destination point, depending on the 16 possible angle result…
Orange is starting point.
Blue is destination point
Lime is destination point with a skip
[details=00 = 0°]
456456456456456456456
789789789789789789789
123123123123123123123
456456456456456456456
789789789789789789789
123123123123123123123
456456456456456456456[/details]
[details=01 = 22.5°]
456456456456456456456
789789789789789789789
123123123123123123123
456456456456456456456
789789789789789789789
123123123123123123123
456456456456456456456[/details]
[details=02 = 45°]456456456456456456456
789789789789789789789
123123123123123123123
456456456456456456456
789789789789789789789
123123123123123123123
456456456456456456456[/details]
And onward for other possibilities I guess? (not really wanting to map them all out since this should get the idea across)
I guess it would mean that…
00 = 00 08s
02 = 02 05s 07 10s 13 15s
04 = 04 12s
06 = 01 03s 06 09s 11 14s
08 = 00s 08
10 = 02s 05 07s 10 13s 15
12 = 04s 12
14 = 01s 03 06s 09 11s 14
And keeping the only ones used…
00 = 00 08s
02 = 07
06 = 01 06 11 14s
08 = 08
10 = 02s 10
14 = 14
But this makes it feel wrong because of how often the same values are reused, especially for 06 I guess…
Um, that’s also assuming I mapped this properly, which may not be the case cause I’m kinda overly out of it…
But in the odd case it is it would mean that…
The sequence could be alternative written as
5-10-06-06-00-06-10-00-00-14-08-06-00-00-06-02
And beyond that it’d be a matter of figuring out what the starting angle would be.
But there’s like 99% chances this is off heh.
I guess another possibility among the same idea is that we are restrained to the small basic map, meaning…
123
456
789
In that case it would make sense to have 22.5° angles in order for instance to jump from the number 7 to the number 6, and would make sense to need “s” for “double jumps” for instance in order to reach the number 9 from the number 7.
That would actually explain why “s” numbers are all even numbers, as the only situations where this would be required would be ones where the angles are multiples of 45°.
… Hmmm this seems to be wrong as a possible sequence from this can be created until the first “s” number, but then stops working with the 00 after… unless 00 is not a cardinal direction but a diagonal one, which I didn’t try (may still not work…)
I guess if I forget the “barrier” idea and apply this idea nonetheless with a 0° angle referring to “east” and a CCW rotation it would result as 5762373172197842
If tau is a key to solving this, here is a good link :
I have no obligation to indulge you voyager.
However your trinity of questions seem amusing, and as such have earned my attention for now.
The code that opens the door is indeed 16 characters in length.
As for the latter two, all I can say is that I refuse for reasons I am not required to elaborate on.
Knowledge of that visual novel is unlikely to help you here
[color=red]Yes[/color]