Your task is to look for patterns in the long sequence of digits in the encrypted signal.
The technique you're going to use here is called the largest series product.
Let's define a few terms, first.
- input: the sequence of digits that you need to analyze
- series: a sequence of adjacent digits (those that are next to each other) that is contained within the input
- span: how many digits long each series is
- product: what you get when you multiply numbers together
Let's work through an example, with the input "63915".
- To form a series, take adjacent digits in the original input.
- If you are working with a span of
3, there will be three possible series:"639""391""915"
- Then we need to calculate the product of each series:
- The product of the series
"639"is 162 (6 × 3 × 9 = 162) - The product of the series
"391"is 27 (3 × 9 × 1 = 27) - The product of the series
"915"is 45 (9 × 1 × 5 = 45)
- The product of the series
- 162 is bigger than both 27 and 45, so the largest series product of
"63915"is from the series"639". So the answer is 162.