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Here are four more sequence puzzles. The challenge is to guess the pattern and hence fill in the missing terms. Each "???" denotes exactly one missing term.

  1. 6, ???, 5, 8, 4, ???, 7, 3, 4, ???, 4 (now solved by March Ho)
  2. Henry, Lily, Ben, Ned, Natalie, ???, Albert, Simon (now solved by KSab)
  3. 73, 74, 88, 51, 28, 36, 84, 50, 83, 99, ??? (now solved by Len)
  4. 40, 30, 70, 39, 54, 74, 23, ??? (whoever solves this will get the accepted answer)

Please let me know whether these are too easy, too hard, or neither! I've tried to arrange them in order of difficulty, but I could be completely wrong with this.

Hint (in riddle form):

The same thing coming more than once,
Sometimes coming once a month.
Then the wood on which you eat,
Perhaps excelling at what it does.

Rand al'Thor
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    are they independent? –  Mar 16 '15 at 17:23
  • @TheEmperorofIceCream Yes, all four are independent. – Rand al'Thor Mar 16 '15 at 21:00
  • Is the title relevant to any of the sequences? – xnor Mar 17 '15 at 07:09
  • @xnor No, the title is just a joke. All previous questions of this kind have had titles something like "Another batch of four sequence puzzles", so I thought I may as well do something with the word "batch"! Do you think it's too distracting? – Rand al'Thor Mar 17 '15 at 09:37
  • Could one of the four downvoters please let me know what's wrong with this puzzle so I can improve in the future? – Rand al'Thor Mar 18 '15 at 20:18
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    I didn't down vote, but if I had to guess it is something similar to the days of the spaghetti party debacle where these types of puzzle are becoming too common (though not necessarily to the same degree) and all of the rules defining them are progressing more and more out into left field... just a guess though. – Warlord 099 Mar 23 '15 at 22:03
  • @Warlord099 Thanks for your feedback. This is the first puzzle of this kind I've made - I think all the others have been by Martin - and the ideas used are no more left-field than those in his puzzles, indeed less so than many of his ideas. – Rand al'Thor Mar 23 '15 at 22:06
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    I just look at the title and see the name Benedict Cumberbatch. – A E Mar 23 '15 at 22:24
  • @AE Well caught! ;-) As I said to xnor, the title is just a joke and no hint. If you think it's too distracting, I can edit it out. – Rand al'Thor Mar 23 '15 at 22:27

3 Answers3

6

Partial answer:

1: Decimal sequence expansion of $10-\pi$

6,8,5,8,4,0,7,3,4,6,4 OEIS 030644

March Ho
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For the second question I believe Mary edit: or M'Gann is a valid answer. The names begin with first letters of the ordered (though not consecutive) elements of the periodic table, the open spot having to be Magnesium.

KSab
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    Very good observation. In addition, the first 2 letters of each name match the short form of the elements according to the order in the periodic table (and only the elements with two letters as short form are considered, hence skipping H, B, C, N, O, and F). But the problem is, what name starts with Mg? – LaBird Mar 24 '15 at 15:12
  • @LaBird At first I was actually thinking that, but I after a brief internet search for names that begin with Mg, I thought that perhaps it was just the two first letters of the elements, I don't know though it does seem like the short form was the asker's intention. – KSab Mar 24 '15 at 15:19
  • @LaBird M'Gann? – KSmarts Mar 24 '15 at 15:24
  • Well done! As @LaBird says, the sequence is of names whose first two letters are the codes for successive 2-letter-code elements. I made sure the ??? was in the position corresponding to Magnesium because I couldn't think of a name beginning with Mg ;-) – Rand al'Thor Mar 24 '15 at 20:37
  • Hint: the pattern to the 4th sequence is in the same sort of ballpark. – Rand al'Thor Apr 27 '15 at 22:53
  • @randal'thor - This hint should really be provided in the question instead of the comments. – Len Apr 28 '15 at 08:44
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Sequence 3 is:

the last 2 digits of the 11 users with the highest rep on puzzling.se. The sequence in the question has been revised as the order has been changing. The missing numbers are shown in bold:
ver5: 73, 74, 88, 51, 28, 36, 84, 50, 83, 99, 88
ver4: 73, 74, 88, 51, 28, 36, 84, 83, 50, 20, 99
ver1: 73, 74, 88, 51, 28, 36, 84, 83, 20, 99, 50

Sequence 4 is:

the atomic numbers for the elements in reverse alphabetical order of the chemical symbols:

Zr, Zn, Yt, Y, Xe, W, V, Uut
40, 30, 70, 39, 54, 74, 23, 113

Len
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