145 Puzzle
April 20, 2010
Consider this math puzzle:
Form all the arithmetic expressions that consist of the digits one through nine, in order, with a plus-sign, a times-sign, or a null character interpolated between each pair of digits; for instance, 12+34*56+7*89 is a valid expression that evaluates to 2539. What number is the most frequent result of evaluating all possible arithmetic expressions formed as described above? How many times does it occur? What are the expressions that evaluate to that result?
Your task is to answer the three questions. When you are finished, you are welcome to read or run a suggested solution, or to post your own solution or discuss the exercise in the comments below.
Programming Praxis 