[RWebb]

I agree with doing some manual "prototypes" of this in Excel.

There is indeed a min. set that will satisfy your criteria & I don't think it will be in the millions. real issue is how many min. sets are there?

why not sort the 25 entries from largest to smallest; then copy the smallest 24 to a new worksheet; then copy 23... etc.

work back from there & rule out the small #'s - that should give at least one result

if not, keep track of it, and add back the biggest #, drop the 2nd biggest;

Lather/Rinse/Repeat

it's a weird Q. for me right now b/c I'm reading a book on Richard Feynmann and how when he was at Los Alamos, they set up "circles of girls on calculating machines" and ran things thru those circles until they got answers - and a bomb