Solver - Assign values to the letters of the alphabet

[jtudor]

I have a puzzle to solve and have been trying for a while now.

Each letter of the alphabet is valued between 1 - 26.

I have a list of 20 names. (Some have double letters in them such as
Barrett)

Each name has a known value based on the sum of it's letter values. (eg
Barrett MAY be 3+7+2+2+6+10+10 = 40 but I only know the total, NOT the
individual letter values)

Each value of 1 - 26 can only be used once for A - Z.

Requirement - Assign each letter of the alphabet a value between 1 & 26
to give the correct name value. Each letter value is to be used only
once.

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

 

[Dana DeLouis]

Barrett MAY be 3+7+2+2+6+10+10 = 40

Hi. Interesting Puzzle. I was curious on your example. Given an Integer
Partition of 40, with a max value of 26, there are 36,965 partitions. Given
"Barrett" where two numbers can repeat once (r & t) I show there are 673
possible solutions. (I thought there would be a lot more :>0 )

Most of the Solver solutions that I know of use a Table (a-z listed across,
and down). Each intersection is either a 1 or 0 (Binary). Each row can
have only one '1, and each column can have only one '1. However, Solver can
have only 200 changing cells, or a table of about 14*14 (=196)
Maybe you could try using the 14 most common letters in all your names, and
hope the solution makes it easier to solve the rest of the letters.
What are your other names & values?

 

[GeoJack]

Hi Dana

I've sort of got solver to run the problem on all 26 letters. However,
even though I have it set to return an Integer for each letter, I get
non-integer values. I know there is a bug in the german & Polish
versions on this issue. Are you aware of any in the English version. I
can't seem to find any reference to it anywhere.

XP Pro SP2 & Excel 2002 SP3

I'm not sure if you saw the link to the actual puzzle I'm trying to
solve

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=eb2db6ce-1536-4a1a-ad0a-d95bbd5b7394

Regards
John