Subject: word addition

Name: Harman Chaudhry
Who is asking: Student
Level: Secondary

Question:
What is the value of DISHES if SEE + THE + WAITER + WASHES = DISHES. In addition, I know there is a name for these types of problems--what are they actually called? Thank You.

They are called ALPHAMETICS (as in, "Solve the following alphametic.") The way to solve them is to systematically try all possibilities until you succeed. Sometimes you can guess what letter must be 5 or 0. Here you might try I = 0 (because I + S = S in the fourth column from the right), but 1 must have been carried from the previous column, so that in fact, I = 9 and A = 4 (because A + A = I in the next column). From the right-hand column you can deduce that E cannot be 0 (because the right-hand column is E+E+R+S = S), so you get 2E + R = 10; thus start with E = 1 and R = 8. If that leads to a contradiction then try E = 2, and so forth.