1 sat \ 0 replies \ @south_korea_ln OP 30 Oct \ on: [Daily puzzle] Fill in the blanks science
Reasoned solution:
Let the blanks be filled in with , , , , , , and , respectively. Among these, the first four entries satisfy for , while the other three entries each satisfy . Thus, , , and . Given , the values have opposite parity, so there’s at least one additional even and odd entry. Consequently, and . This limits to only five pairs: or . Each pair has exactly one prime number, hence , but , as this “3” would add a fourth prime to the set, implying .
Now, only and are potential placements for “1,” so . If , there are three primes, including one from , but not . Setting would then leave only three primes, and any other would be too large. Thus, . Assume ; then . To assess feasibility, suppose , which implies , creating a contradiction with . Thus, . If , leads to more than three primes, so .
With , counting primes from yields five primes. Setting results in six primes, while yields five primes, a contradiction. Therefore, , implying because would introduce three “2”s. Since only allows a third 2, we conclude and .
Thus, we find six primes with or , resulting in two possible solutions: and .