Numbo

In chapter three of the reading, Daniel Defays discusses the Numbo program. He explains the goals of the game of Numble, which is to construct a given number, designated as the goal, from a group of other given numbers, using the three mathematical operations of addition, subtraction, and multiplication. This is a lot like crypto problems, except for that division is not used, and that all numbers do not need to be used to reach the designated goal number in the Numble game.

Still, the same basic principles seem to apply to the two different number games, and much of what Defays discusses reminds me yet again of the way in which I attempted to solve my first set of crypto problems. In Numbo, there are Pnodes which basically serve as markers stored in the Pnet meant to be close enough to specific ranges to be of use. In the first example that he walks the reader through, the goal is 114. In this case, the Pnode “100”, which has been programmed in as part of Numbo, is activated due to its relative closeness to 114.

The system seems to model the way that people think when approaching these problems, but even as Defays himself admits, the Pnet (the area storing the permanent network of knowledge that the program holds) does not know and recognize all of the same types of things that a human would recognize.