October 4, 1999
Problem of the Month

Spelling Challenge
From Steve Wentworth
in Recreational and
Educational computing

Count, but spell out the values: ONE, TWO, THREE, ...

When do you first encounter the letter "C"?

In other words, what is the first number that contains the letter "C"?

Be careful to give the complete name of the number (like one hundred -- not just hundred!).

Note: the number 123 is one hundred twenty-three, NOT one hundred and twenty-three."

(Perhaps a more challenging problem would have been to give the sequence of all the letters as they appear in the counting numbers, and to find which letters are never used! For example, O, N, E, T, W, H, R, ...).

Solution to the Problem:

1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 = ONE OCTILLION.

It is interesting to note the order in which the alphabet letters appear:
O N E T W H R F U I V S X G L Y D A M B Q P C.
No number has J, K, or Z in it!! No ZILLION!!!!

Correctly solved by:

1. Tom Marino	Winchester, VA
2. Bob Hearn	Winchester, VA
3. Elizabeth Cotter	Centreville, VA
4. Jon Pence	Winchester, VA
5. Jeremy Ramsey	Williamsburg, VA (College of William and Mary)
6. Richard Mocarski	Winchester, VA

Send any comments or questions to: David Pleacher