The Great Puzzle Hunt

A woman after my own heart, Millie Johnson loves both puzzles and jokes. She regularly posts to Facebook, and these two gems appeared recently in her feed:

• If all whole numbers between 1 and 1000 were spelled out and arranged in alphabetical order, which number would be next-to-last?

• Arrange the digits 0‑9 into a ten-digit number such that the leftmost n digits comprise a number divisible by n. For example, if the number is ABCDEFGHJK, the three-digit number ABC must be divisible by 3, the five-digit number ABCDE must be divisible by 5, and so on.

The answers to both can be found with an online search, and the latter can be computed in milliseconds by writing some code, but you’ll have more fun if you find the answers using that big lump of gray matter in your skull.

She also recently shared this joke, which I just adore:

Millie is also the founder and puzzle creator for the Great Puzzle Hunt, a free, fun, full-day, team puzzle-solving event. While folks in and around Bellingham, WA, on April 9 will be lucky enough to participate in the face-to-face event on the Western Washington University campus, the rest of the world is invited to participate virtually. There are divisions for secondary (middle and high school), open (any age), WWU students, and WWU alumni. And in case you missed the subtle mention above, I’ll say it again: registration for a team of up to six participants is FREE!

Participants will engage with four puzzles; then, the answers to those puzzles will be used to form a fifth and final meta-puzzle. How hard are the puzzles? See for yourself; the puzzle below, My Life Is In Ruins!, is from the 2021 Great Puzzle Hunt:

GPH2021_LifeInRuinsDownload

The Great Puzzle Hunt is a full-day event, so pack a lunch! But my sons and I participated last year and had a phenomenal time. By the end, we were mentally exhausted but invigorated and intellectually satisfied. If you like to solve puzzles, head on over to https://www.greatpuzzlehunt.com/register and register today!