A perfect solution to 24s

In several recent posts, I have discussed a method for perfect solution to the game of 24s. Here, I summarize some of those results and link to the Mathematica notebook I used to find them, and a comprehensive list of solutions for those who would like to skip the math and get right to the answer.

To recap, there are 715 possible hands in a game of 24s. 566 of those hands can be solved with arithmetics alone, 595 if we add roots, powers, and logs, and 619 if we add Mod.

I generally play with Log and Power and Root allowed, but not Mod. I find that the hands that are solvable only with Log, Power, and Root, generally are solvable by humans. See for example

{1,1,8,9} -> 8 Root[9,1+1]
{1,2,9,9} -> (9-1) Root[9,2]
{2, 2, 2, 6} -> 2^(2+Log[2,6]) or (2*Root[6,2])^2
{2,2,9,9} -> 2(Root[9,2]+9)
{3,7,8,10} -> 7 Root[8,3] +10
{3,4,9,10} -> 4+Log[3,9]*10
{7, 8, 9, 9} -> 8 Root[9,9-7], and
{8, 8, 9, 10} -> 8 Root[9,10-8].

A bright high school student should be able to find any of those. However, Mod introduces solutions that would probably never be played by an unaided human being. For example,

{5, 6, 7, 10} -> 6*Mod[7^10,5], and

{5,7,7,8} -> 8*Mod[7^7,5].

There is no other solution in these two cases.

Anyway, I’ve provided a comprehensive list of solutions linked as RTF and PDF documents, and the Mathematica notebook that I used to solve the problem in the first place.

All 24s in PDF.

Again, but as an RTF file.

And, most importantly, the Mathematica notebook.

Let me know if you do anything interesting with this.