The Numerical Jumbo - Numbo

In this section, Hofstadter introduces another project which he calls 'Numbo". To put it simply, this is a combination of Hofstadter's Jumbo project and the crypto problems we have been working on. However, there are two differences between Numbo problems and crypto problems. The first one is that only addition, subtraction, and multiplication may be used. There is no division unlike in crypto. The second is that every number, or brick, may be used either 0 or 1 times to get the solution, unlike crypto where each number has to be used once.

While the game of Numbo works almost identical to crypto, the program itself seems as if it will work very similarly to Jumbo. The only noticeable difference I recognized thus far, is that Numbo will use a combination of both bottom-up and top-down approaches than Jumbo. Similar to Jumbo, Numbo will use landmarks and other techniques to build "gloms" from the ground up to find the solution. These landmarks are merely just numerical versions of common syllables used in Jumbo.

The main difference between Numbo and Jumbo besides the obvious, is that Numbo will have to be much more random in its search to find some solutions. For example, in Puzzle #6 (Target: 146, Bricks: 12,2,5,7,18), Hofstadter suggests finding a way to make 12*12 to get 144 as a landmark. While this is the way Hofstadter suggests, there are many other ways that a user may realistically take to get the result. In short, Numbo seems like it will have to be much more random in the ways it tries to get a solution to compensate for the many different ways any single user may take.