Sometimes, I hate Wordle.

 

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This brings up an intriguing Wordle challenge: What is the worst possible combination of solution and guesses such that, even if you got 4/5 totally correct on your first guess, you might still have to guess several more times to nail it? Put another way, how many five-letter words are there that differ in precisely one letter at the same position?

Today's solution (partial spoiler) shows that there is a set of five words that differ in just one letter in the same position. Is there a set of six? Or worse?

BONUS: My mathie brain revels in the challenge of Nerdle, which has the delightful additional feature of letting you put in character guesses in arbitrary order, so you can fill in what you know for your next guess, while pondering the rest.