Credited with solving this puzzle (w/ extra credit!):
36 people live in a 6×6 grid, and each one of them lives in a separate square of the grid. Each resident’s neighbors are those who live in the squares that have a common edge with that resident’s square.
Each resident of the grid is assigned a natural number N, such that if a person receives some N>1, then he or she must also have neighbors that have been assigned all of the numbers 1,2,…,N-1.
Find a configuration of the 36 neighbors where the sum of their numbers is at least 90.
Finding a sum of 90+N will earn you N stars near your name.
As an example, the highest sum we can get in a 3×3 grid is 20:
1 2 1
4 3 4
2 1 2An accompanying riddle, relating to a generalized version of this problem, appears in this month’s Using your Head is Permitted
( http://www.brand.site.co.il/riddles/201212q.html).
