Puzzle Fantastica
Here’s something that might interest the scientists and/or creative folk and/or XtR33m puzzlorz out there. The World’s Fair guys over at ScienceBlogs* posted their first Puzzle Fantastica several weeks ago. They put up five ‘clues’ (three images, a video, and an image of text) and challenged the world to discover “something not to reveal.” That’s it—no rules, no hints, just five clues. When you get it, you’ll know it, apparently.
I saw the puzzle when it first went up, idly thought about it a bit, read through the comments (wild-ass guesses and conspiracy theories, mostly)…and then went on vacation and forgot about it.
Interesting to see, then, that as of today, the puzzle remains unsolved (hat-tip to BoingBoing for the reminder). Readers have collectively uncovered piles and piles of ‘evidence,’ but the community as a whole doesn’t even seem to be moving in a coherent direction. The puzzle’s creators promise there’s a solution; it’d be a dirty trick if there weren’t, wouldn’t it?
The puzzle explains itself better than I can. Links: the original post, adding the final clue, the most recent update.
This style of puzzle is a little too hardcore for me, but I love the idea of it and watching people try to untangle it, and of course I can’t wait to see the answer. I do hope it’s elegant.
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* If you’re looking for quality science blogging, or even if you’re not, I highly recommend ScienceBlogs: great writing on fascinating, relevant topics by variously-flavored Ph.D.s and other smart people, plus a friendly community of commenters. The site has grown a bunch since I first found it a few months ago (47 blogs as of this writing), and I have to exert a measure of self-control to keep from just subscribing to all of them and spending my whole day reading. (Right now I’m subscribed to three or four…or five. I think.)
Tags: math & puzzles