Jamshrivelson

Question: Find the longest words that share letters with only 49 of the 50 U.S. states. Extra: find the state with the most such words. [Solution]

Question: A post can accumulate spam comments, and each spam comment can accumulate spam comments. If each open reply thread accumulates spam at a rate of $1$ reply per day, then what is the expected number of spam posts by the end of a three day weekend? [Solution]

Question: You can make 100 coin flips with either of two coins, Coin A worth $\pm1,$ and Coin B worth $\pm2.$ You survive if you end up with a positive score. How should you flip the coins to maximize your chances? [Solution]

Question: The NYTimes has a new word game called Spelling Bee. The idea of the game is, on a board like the one below, to make words using only the letters on the board under the constraint that the central letter must be used. Words are worth their length in letters (with a minimum length of $4$), but words that use all $7$ letters — known as pangrams — are awarded $7$ bonus points. The valid word list is Peter Norvig’s which contains some 172820 distinct words. The object is to find the game board with the highest possible maximum score. [Solution]