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Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210 |
Interesting mathematical progression then:
letters=words
2=2
3=6
4=24
5=120 some sort of factorial Fibonacci?
formerly known as etaoin...
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
a two-letter word which works: aa - joe (me/em) friday
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Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210 |
for three ate gets close? eat ate tea then tae (maybe?) aet ata and my favorite: ETA 
formerly known as etaoin...
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,819
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,819 |
some sort of factorial Fibonacci? I wouldn't make it seem that complicated. It's simply a matter of the factorial of any number. Suppose you have an 8 letter word. For the first position, you have eight choices. Once you've chosen the first letter, you now have 7 letters left over to choose from for the second letter in the word, and so on, so that the number of possible choices for a given position decreases by one each time. Hence 8 x 7 x 6 x 5 x 4 x3 x 2 x 1 = 8! = 40320 combinations of 8 letters. It naturally follows that 9! will be 9 times 8! and so on.
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Joined: Apr 2007
Posts: 120
member
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member
Joined: Apr 2007
Posts: 120 |
Remove the restriction to using just the English language and you probably will have better odds.
tempus edax rerum
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Joined: Oct 2005
Posts: 557
addict
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addict
Joined: Oct 2005
Posts: 557 |
well, you could try words with repeated letters -- that would make the task somewhat easier. Actually, I think you can pretty much eliminate all 3 or more letter words with repeated letters because one of the combinations is going to be starting with the two repeated letters and another is going to end with the two repeated letters. There are some words end in double letters (butt, ass, ...) but not too many start with double letters (aardvark, oocyst, ... um... ). I don't think those two sets are going to intersect.
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Joined: Mar 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Joined: Feb 2008
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old hand
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OP
old hand
Joined: Feb 2008
Posts: 1,067 |
some sort of factorial Fibonacci? I wouldn't make it seem that complicated. It's simply a matter of the factorial of any number. I thought the factorial of a number was the ADDITION of all previous numbers, not the multiplication of them? That is, !8 = 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8=36 It is a factorial multiplication, whatever the technical term for that is, but not THE factorial of the number. I think? 
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
some sort of factorial Fibonacci? I wouldn't make it seem that complicated. It's simply a matter of the factorial of any number. I thought the factorial of a number was the ADDITION of all previous numbers, not the multiplication of them? That is, !8 = 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8=36 It is a factorial multiplication, whatever the technical term for that is, but not THE factorial of the number. I think? I think the word you're looking for is factorial.
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
a two-letter word which works: aa - joe (me/em) friday No.
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