“Hundreds of years ago, your ancestor stole a magical tarot deck from Fate herself— and it came with a terrible cost. Once every 23 years, one member of your family must face Fate in a duel with rules only known to your opponent. And every time, generation after generation, the outcome is the same: Fate claims their soul. Today, it’s your turn.”
How will you defeat Fate? Luckily, the previous challenger—your father—left a recording of his attempt, providing you with a preview of the puzzle… as well as Fate’s misleading trick. But you’ll still need to figure out the math.
This TED-Ed challenge from Math For Love’s Dan Finkel, directed by Igor Coric, Artrake Studio, challenges you to “take any card that has at least one factor on the table.” Fate gets that card’s remaining factors, and then chooses a card, giving you that card’s remaining factors.
If you run out of moves, the rest of the cards go to Fate. The player with the higher total at the end of the game is the winner.
In math, factors are the numbers that can be multiplied to get another number. For example, 1, 2, 3, and 6 are factors of 6. The factors of 12 are 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 12. And the factors of 16 are 1, 2, 4, 8, and 16.
What cards can you pick to beat Fate? Pause the video at 2m23s to try and solve the puzzle without help, or keep playing to see a few scenarios and the solution. Find the rules below:
A 2015 version of this puzzle was called The Tax Collector.
Watch these TED-Ed videos that include more math next:
• Can you solve the locker riddle?
• The Alien Pyramid Riddle
• The Infinite Gold Riddle
• Can you solve the wizard standoff riddle?
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