Prize
The puzzle's inventor Christopher Monckton put up half the prize money himself, the other half being put up by underwriters in the London insurance market. According to Eternity's rules, possible solutions to the puzzle would be received by mail on September 21, 2000. If no correct solutions were opened, the mail for the next year would be kept until September 30, 2001, the process being repeated every year until 2003, after which no entries would be accepted.
Before marketing the puzzle, Monckton had thought that it would take at least three years before anyone could crack the puzzle. One estimate made at the time stated that the puzzle had 10500 possible attempts at a solution, and it would take longer than the lifetime of the Universe to calculate all of them even if you had a million computers.
Once solved, Monckton falsely claimed that the earlier-than-expected solution had forced him to sell his 67-room house to pay the prize. In 2006, he disclosed that the claim had been a PR stunt to boost sales over Christmas, that the house's sale was unrelated to the prize, and that he was going to sell it anyway.
Read more about this topic: Eternity Puzzle
Famous quotes containing the word prize:
“Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.”
—Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)
“The true runner comes to the finish and receives the prize and is crowned.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)
“Then, though I prize my friends, I cannot afford to talk with them and study their visions, lest I lose my own. It would indeed give me a certain household joy to quit this lofty seeking, this spiritual astronomy, or search of stars, and come down to warm sympathies with you; but then I know well I shall mourn always the vanishing of my mighty gods.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)