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Comment by qsort | Hacker News Reader

Am I stupid or this is solvable with pen and paper?

The word problem directly translates to this system of diophantine equations:

    (i)  { x + y + z = 100
    (ii) { 6x + 4y + z = 200

Replacing z in (ii) using (i) yields:

    (ii) <=> 6x + 4y - x - y + 100 = 200 <=> 5x + 3y = 100

Which is solvable with the usual method.

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I could be wrong, but my impression of the post was that it is not meant to be a novel solution for a hard problem, but rather a demonstration of an interesting technique on a simple enough problem that the problem doesn’t distract from the technique itself.

Yes, if you follow the link to problem, that page gives the trivial algebra solution.

The matrix version is interesting, but it's bizarrely motivated as an overcomplicated way to solve a simple problem.

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