[Guest]

Hey gang. I've been peeking at the puzzles around here every now and again on my iGoogle page; I'm supposed to be doing coursework for uni, so I figured it was as good a time as any to start procrastinating and throw a puzzle up here!

Nothing particularly complicated for my first outing:

535355533345345 433534 334 444334354433343 445543444335345533

The above string of numbers should resolve into a simple (and ironic) phrase or saying.

[akaslickster]

With 26 letters in the alphabet, I can't imagine where to start. Only 3 numbers are shown. Perhaps a hint may be needed.

[Guest]

With 26 letters in the alphabet, I can't imagine where to start. Only 3 numbers are shown. Perhaps a hint may be needed.

The number of digits in each word is divisable by three...

Each letter is three digits long

334 which is out on its own is probably a or i

We're only using three different digits, so we're probably looking at trinary (base 3) code

substitute 0 for 3, 1 for 4 and 2 for 5 to give us:

202 022 200 012 012/100 201/001/111 001 021 100 010/112 210 111 002 012 200

converting these back to decimal gives us

20 8 18 5 5 / 9 19 / 1 / 13 1 7 9 3 / 14 21 13 2 5 18

and then its a simple a=1, b=2 substitution to give us the big hint:

three is a magic number

[Guest]

Three is a magic number.

Thanks for the binary code thing.

[Guest]

Spot on, armcie.