The Sphinx's Lair

boboquack, did you know that the triangulation proof-without-words is a classic? what a great choice, it really is the first infinite-sum example in the book and i didn't know that until i guessed what you might be doing

12:54 AM

Yes, I did. I was searching for a good place to display it without making it obvious.

the obfuscation worked well, more than once

i was mentioning to Rand al'Thor that it would be nice to see a proof-without-words about words

something to do with linguistics or etymology

That would be... really hard

somewhat seriously in any case, you really could post your above proof as a spot the goof-in-the-proof-without-words

That would be more Maths SE territory

here you'd have deduce what is being proven first

(a note for R al'T and then bye for now)

1:02 AM

@humn What are you expecting for the character nav bounty?

more answers, even with more blocks. it's such a fun puzzle to work on, especially on paper, and has room for much more imagination than covered so far

your highrise solution already showed me things i overlooked

would be interesting see more sketches that led you to posing the puzzle in the first place

also i wanted users to come back for a second look if they were scared off by the original scale

@humn I don't have sketches unfortunately, it was just a flash of inspiration. Unfortunately, I made it too hard to start off with, and so missed out on potential upvotes :P

perhaps you could get the bounty by posting an alternate solution. i'd vote for it regardless

@humn What did you mean when you said 'boboquack's answer shows how exquisitely efficient the few clues are'

on the tangled keyrings puzzle?

Hi @Vol

hi

1:10 AM

i was daunted by the gorgeous mass of data that included only 3 specific clues (puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/48231/…)

Some of Yuriy S's puzzles are like that, deceptively dense and make me wish i'd tried them with a lighter touch like you did

(that didn't come out quite right)

So many puzzles are misconstrued/underestimated at first.

(Oh, @Vol, sorry I'm so thick about the missing piece of this:

10

Q: A "Letter" Slope puzzle?

Your brother has been forcing you to some read some of his frankly ridiculous poetry, so, knowing that he was never a numbers man, you decide to vex him with a Number Slope puzzle. In fact, you are so confident that he won't be able to solve it that you bet all your PSE rep on it. The next day, ...

It's one of a handful of puzzles I keep trying to sneak up on from a new angle.)

Try 76º

I suppose it might be too subtle

1:25 AM

(getting out my protractor)

@Khale_Kitha , That's the spirit!

@humn did you want a hint? Technically it's not a necessary part of the solution.

:)

some numbers trigger canned responses from me

@Volatility , another hint would be great, my puzzle for you is: what is my mental block? i'm sure you've said enough already but i'm stuck somehow

RUBIK'S CUBE? :P

4x4x4?

1:28 AM

(that wasn't the hint, I was just treating "mental block?" as a cryptic definition)

yeah, i should disassemble my mental block and put it back together with the colors right

Btw, you're the only one who has commented on something about my puzzle - so the answer to your supposition is: Yes, that's important. I've been italicizing the words, gradually, over a few days time, as a hint. - @Volatility

@Khale_Kitha I see, I wasn't following the question closely

K_K, i tried charting the word lenghts and looking at their least and most significant bits, just to swim the words if nothing else, but didn't spark anything

I'll give one hint here - because it wouldn't really be appropriate on the puzzle and is...well....a bit too big of a hint.

Hint: Look to the past. An email may hold the key.

1:30 AM

@humn here's the actual hint: look at the puzzle presentation, and its relationship with your row 3. Where does T fit in?

@Volatility is this a coincidence or can you stick the different grids together to make a T-tetromino along the sides

Because you can...

Umm, coincidence. How so?

Actually that's too vague...

Updated.

it's specific enough to be pinned to my worksheet

@Volatility 1 with 3 under (rot 90 deg anticlockwise), 2 right (normal orientation) and 4 left (rot 90 deg anticlockwise)

1:33 AM

Btw, I hope to have a new image coming for you, soon humn.... but it slows my machine to a crawl BEFORE I start the render, so it'll take a little while

have you even had a chance to resume the one from a few hours ago?

No, I'll have to wait to an overnight for that

Other than sitting with a sick little girl, I've been at my machine most of the day

@boboquack I don't see it...

@Volatility , thanks, am i being too distracted by the circled corners?

@humn no, that part is not a coincidence

but there's also a 5x5 in the middle

enigmatic-puzzle grid-deduction

1:37 AM

oh yeah, i've wondered if i lost something by segregating the sizes, no need to say more ... for now

right now this is like a gathering of puzzles ready to picked, we each have a recent one that's so obvious to ourselves

@boboquack, did you see my temporary comment about reading "Z: I know you're all excited to get in..." phonetically?

it reads like letters: Z I N O U R L X I T E D 2 (until that number)

5

Q: A Family Reunion

Names have been changed to preserve anonymity A group of 25 people, A to Y, arrived at Z's door to celebrate the family reunion. They each had something to show off. Z: I know you're all excited to get in, but remember we've got we want to say to the community. To make sure you're all ready,...

@Khale_Kitha aw, K_K and trustee, with hands full, but I do see now that your references to previous Batmans are more than unabashed promotion

(dictionary doesn't agree with my usage of trustee: meant someone in your trust) (have to unlearn an old word everyday)

@humn Have you left your message for rand yet or have you been distracted?

... right ...

@Randal'Thor, the article you mentioned is an example of Poe doing a Making-of-wrap-up post of The Raven as if it had been a puzzle. And it talks about creating something from back to front, which just has to be how Poe wrote the article itself too. Seeing a lot more in Poe now.

1:55 AM

@humn Yes! I really love the idea of an article like that, and of course The Raven itself is an absolute masterpiece.

Quoth the humn, "Rand al' Thor"

rap rap! ^ clap clap!

:P

(i heard a great knock knock joke about Poe and Shakespeare (but can't even begin to recall it)

we rapped upon your dusky door, padding syllables Rand al'Thor

@humn I went to the library the other day to ask after a book on Pavlov's dog and Schrodinger's cat. The librarian said it rang a bell but she wasn't sure if it was there or not.

5

1:59 AM

nyuk nyuk nyuk nyuk

arr, R al'T i made a puzzle to honor your Word connection squares! and you split right before poset time

@humn Do you really mean partially order set, or is that a typo?

aaaaaa to the extent that a pose/post is a poset, as is life now that you mention it

... and K_K, if/when you have a chance to see, my pictures don't even come close to 2.1-dimensional even on a very-large-value day for 2, but this is one i actually thought might amuse you when i made it:

part of it is 3-D, part of it has implied shadows, part of it is well-dressed

(part of it begs for a Hitchhiker's Guide joke)

now it looks like the rainbows are casting a sun shadow on the ground

2:18 AM

Haven't seen Bailey M in a long while!

(... too much is enough for now ... originally typed by just to drop that note about Poe ... to be cont'd ...)

@Volatility Yep, he's one of those who stormed up the rep leagues and then mysteriously vanished.

Wait, what?

He's posting on the site again?!

Hence my remark :P

Q: An endless loop in a desolate wasteland

0

You check your position tracker. Back at the beginning. Slowly, once again, you begin taking steps and counting cracks in the sidewalk. One. Two. Three. Four. Five You look around. Pitch darkness. Nowhere to go except forward. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. You pull a crumpled scroll out of...

wordplay cryptic-clues cryptography

Wow! 3 posts in a couple of minutes!

mathematics proof-without-words

2:32 AM

2

Q: A strange traffic light

I saw a mysterious picture on an electronic whiteboard in a school I was walking past. I couldn't hear what the teacher was saying, but I could see on the timetable that it said 'Maths'. Can you work out what the lesson was about?

0

Q: The Spies Hidden Instructions

Agent Puzzling, it is time for your first mission. Your first instruction is hidden in the following message: kqxflaizogcrsmcvtludhcpxgkqxbjywnce Hint: Hint:

cipher

Q: Use ciphers to rescue your friend

5:14 AM

0

Your friend Puzzle has been kidnapped by a mysterious group of people. A few days after the capture you receive a mysterious email: Dear Sexaginta Quattuor, $\qquad$TXkgdHdvLXllYXItb2xkIHNvbiBsb292ZWVzc3NzIGJhY29uISBXaGVuIGhlIGVhdHMgaXQgaGUgc2F5cywgIkFBQkFCQkFBQUFBQUJBQUFBQkFBQkFBQkFBQUJ...

cipher

Q: An Image from a hacking quiz, It has kind of a hint

6:01 AM

0

Being successful is on your hands. I you want to come up with a solution, you should look closer. (that's what it says before the pic) it's from a hacking contest, so it's something pretty advanced

visual

Q: What is the probabiity that no one will get is envelope?

7:07 AM

0

You are given 100 addressed envelopes and 100 addressed letters to be inserted into the envelopes. If the letters are inserted randomly into the envelopes, what is the probability that no letter will reached its destination?

probability

Techidiot

8:55 AM

@Alconja Is the answer to the CCCC AMELIORATE?

Q: He who isn't a he, she, or a it

9:06 AM

0

He is not a he. Neither a she or a it. He is divine, mighty, and merciful. He is whom people have neither seen or heard of. He is bestowed with the greatest title of all. If any claims to deserve the title, he/she/it is mocked at. Who is this enigma?

riddle lateral-thinking

Alconja

9:28 AM

@Techidiot Afraid not. Maybe time for a hint?

Q: This is NOT a riddle puzzle

9:47 AM

0

Riddle me this: I am not a riddle. Although I may look like one, I am not. I am hearing you call me a riddle, so... Since riddles can't hear, I mustn't be one! I assure you, I am not a riddle. Can you believe that I'm not a riddle? And can you believe that I'm telling the trut...

riddle

Q: Series Problem By Gpuzzles - I Have Doubt

1:01 PM

0

gpuzzles.com is one of my favorite site along with StackExchange but can someone please elaborate the answer? Problem: Can you solve the number series problem by replacing boxes with number 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15? Note: You can also repeat the number. ? + ? + ? = 30 Answer provided by the si...

riddle mathematics logical-deduction

logical-deduction pattern grid-deduction

1:19 PM

Giant upside-down T sighting, @Volatility, at puzzling.stackexchange.com/a/47883/18129

10

Q: A "Letter" Slope puzzle?

Your brother has been forcing you to some read some of his frankly ridiculous poetry, so, knowing that he was never a numbers man, you decide to vex him with a Number Slope puzzle. In fact, you are so confident that he won't be able to solve it that you bet all your PSE rep on it. The next day, ...

(sorry about the false alarm, @boboquack, though I did learn from A strange traffic light too!)

1:33 PM

@humn \o

@manshu , ahoy, I just saw a couple of minutes ago that you are answering riddles again!

what are you upto these days

yeah...any help with that?

That's...not really a complete answer

Well, one thing I'm not up to yet is answering riddles... just like reading them.

oh...

our room is destroyed now... I tried but... huh :(

you might be able to use part of your answer at another riddle too, a non-riddle that is

sorry about not keeping it warm too. I was out for about a month

are you on break from school?

1:41 PM

not really on break... I still go to college... but it's a weekend so I thought to warm my brain up

BaSzAt's answer on that puzzle seems good to me

I only saw your answer... don't see any others... which puzzle?

Q: This is NOT a riddle puzzle

This one:

3

Riddle me this: I am not a riddle. Although I may look like one, I am not. I am hearing you call me a riddle, so... Since riddles can't hear, I mustn't be one! I assure you, I am not a riddle. Can you believe that I'm not a riddle? And can you believe that I'm tell...

riddle steganography

When you said non-riddle, i thought this is what you were talking about

right, that's the one that reminded me of your "I" answer

You're right, BaSzAt is on to something.

Gotta ask, of course, did you see the full moon recently?

how do you pronounce BaSzAt?

No...lol

If you do pronounce it you'll be sent back to Mars

I see the full moon every time that enough windows clear off my screen

1:47 PM

Whenever there is a full moon day, there is some particular dish that my mom makes...

nice!

(as you can see, my chat icon still has a pencil, ever since you taught me how to edit)

(there we go, that line didn't have a pencil for about 6 seconds)

Oh...are we on a edit spree?

I've stopped pretending not to.

even when there are no changes

I don't want to go to Mars (gotta give some respect to my planet)

hehe

hi all

1:50 PM

sheshe

hihi

waits for edits

6

9

Yes we made the pact of taking turns. Remember the time you leaft for 1 month...that's when I broke that pact

(two strips are in edit timeout)

1:52 PM

@manshu Flagged for plagiarism :p

hullo

hey TGE

@Ankoganit I was just taking revenge. Darn

Hey TGE

TGE, nice and quick on boboquack's latest! I'd never heard of the rearrangement theorem

which one?

1:55 PM

Strange traffic light

mathematics proof-without-words

3

Q: A strange traffic light

I saw a mysterious picture on an electronic whiteboard in a school I was walking past. I couldn't hear what the teacher was saying, but I could see on the timetable that it said 'Maths'. Can you work out what the lesson was about?

Well humn, boboquack and I go to math olympiad training together :P

Ah thanks

Nice PWW

It's technically not a proof, though :P

It's an example of a single case

were you the friend who defaced boboquack's Connect Four with a marking pen?

1:56 PM

Yeah, but that kinda demonstrates why rearrangement should be true

Rearrangement is kinda intuitive anyhow

yeah

true

For positive numbers, for sure

It's a nice puzzle :) I'm sure a non-mather would've gotten it eventually and liked it, had I not ninjad it

@manshu , did you think I had gone to Mars and made it crowded? it doesn't have as much room as this planet after all.

2:00 PM

@Ankoganit I'm currently making 'This is NOT a cryptic crossword puzzle'

ooh

sounds fun

BaSzAt should have written up NOT an answer

It'll probably be fairly underwhelming, sorry :P All of my 'NOT' puzzles are basically one thin layer deep

They're mostly just for me to have fun with

@humn Everything starts from something.

om

2:02 PM

you left many bacterial beings there...

A looong time ago, I actually thought about making something like "This is NOT a puzzle" (inspired by There is no game) but eventually dropped that idea.

Om Shanti Shanti

@TheGreatEscaper Math olympiad?

the copper on all those pennies on Mars was supposed to be antibacterial

It's like um...here have a question from my olympiad homework!

'Find all integer polynomials f(x) such that for all integers a and all prime numbers p, whenever p divides f(a), then p also divides a'

That sort of stuff

2:03 PM

Why would you do that in your free time?

why not?

It's almost like puzzling.

Why do you do puzzles in your free time???

@humn But don't you know that the astronaut bit that coin before leaving it...That's a lot of bacteria from his mouth

Because it's a waste of time! And I enjoy it very much.

2:04 PM

Because it's frustrating, a waste of time, and in that moment when you get a question that you've been stuck on for three hours you feel like you've won the world

Same for maths

Maths just happens to be beautiful a lot of the time too

I mean, puzzles are nice
But dayum, maths *wolf whistles*

I'm not very good at solvings maths and puzzles

I better be writing them!

I'm terrible at solving puzzles

I just like making them

@manshu , you know I only know what you choose to teach me from all you know

I make my own math questions too!

@Ankoganit interested in hearing some math questions of mine?

2 + 2 = 5 for large numbers of 2?

Someone said that around here.

2:06 PM

manshu said that and was right

For sure @TheGreatEscaper

it was a big day for 2

*large values of 2

Currently pondering over that polynomial thing

it was a big day for large values of 2

2:06 PM

I only know what I choose not to teach you. It means I know nothing. Hi, I am Jon Snow.

@incesterror21 It was Matt

The polynomial question is nice, surprisingly short solution

I though it was Maths?

Maths is nice

Most of the time

Until you get a complex bash geometry question

shudders

ugh

Actually @Ankoganit I might just post it as a puzzle here

2:08 PM

cool

A combi one, anyway, that I'm pretty proud of

Maths is nice until you have a maths question paper before you to solve.

you used to know everything, manshu, but you got ignoreflux from contact with homnids

@manshu actually it depends on the paper

multiple choice tests already have the answers written right on the paper

2:09 PM

@humn Well...*humn*oid went away for a month. I couldn't really do anything

if not less,right?

@Ankoganit Hint: Paper is not of either Algebra or Logic or anything good. It's of Calculus

right

you still got it, manshu

@TheGreatEscaper Actually I was thinking this: let f(x)=x^m g(x) so that g(0) <> 0. Now take some p so that p|g(a) for some a, then p|f(a)=> p|a=> p|g(0) But if g is con-constant, then Schur's theorem says there are lllllots of suitable prime p, so g(0) has lots of prime divisor, a Very Bad thing

I am trying btw. My this year's resolution is reading 12 books this year

I could only read 3 or 4 last year

2:13 PM

Woah!

Interesting solution

There's a nice solution which doesn't involve schur's, something I'm not even familiar with

thanks

gotta go now..

tata, guys

May the force be..... 5 N

4

enjoy another book, manshu!

@humn Sure..

2:16 PM

@manshu , i'm looking at the other room to unfreeze it (might be worth a try)

Schur's (NT section on the wiki page) thm is actually pretty easy to prove... it uses Euclid's prove of infinitude of primes kindof argument.

My solution to that question involved considering prime x

Case one - for an infinite number of primes x, f(x) = -1, or 1

By infinite root theorem, it's a constant polynomial

Case two - for an infinite number of primes x, |f(x)| > 1

In which case |f(x)| has to have a prime divisor, but any prime dividing f(x) also divides x, which is prime itself

So there are an infinite number of primes x such that f(x) is a power of x

You can probably see where this is going

yeah, sortof

Q: Personally Attacked by Squares in a Bathroom

In any case, you need to hurry to a bathroom to deal with a personal attack from squares

0

Well, this is a bit of a mess! Your bathroom has a rectangular floorspace of size $xn$ by $yn$, where $x, y, n$ are all positive integers, and now that you've removed those ghastly yellow and purple tiles, you need to redo the entire floorspace. You love thin rectangles, so you've ordered a hug...

mathematics geometry combinatorics

nice proof btw

2:23 PM

Neither Gareth nor you have solved the tiling puzzle yet, TheGE, any second now no doubt

@TheGreatEscaper ooh, interesting

@humn What's the procedure?

looking into that, manshu, about to flag the freeze message as offensive

something like that worked once before elsewhere

I just did it..haha

Q: Personally Attacked by Squares in a Bathroom

0

Well, this is a bit of a mess! Your bathroom has a rectangular floorspace of size $xn$ by $yn$, where $x, y, n$ are all positive integers, and now that you've removed those ghastly yellow and purple tiles, you need to redo the entire floorspace. You love thin rectangles, so you've ordered a hug...

mathematics geometry combinatorics

2:25 PM

me too..hehe

but it didn't ask for an explanation.. the other time it did

did it ask you for a message?

no.

Here comes the error "You cannot flag a message more than 15 days old"

^^ rats

yeah...or maybe we can ask overlords to unfreeze it here: chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/2691/the-assembly

just found the way, manshu, by going into the room... message sent

or even more easy step can be... ask a moderator...

2:32 PM

it was actually Rand al'Thor who unfroze my other request while not even on this site last year. Very cool.

(I didn't even know who that was then)

Thanks to him

^!

@humn How could he do that? Was he a mod here?

Can't be, he wasn't on the site...

I think he has overall superpowers. And he just did it again! Bow down.

Ahh, the chat rooms are not bound to their respective sites.

2:40 PM

seems like that

scifi.stackexchange.com/users/31394/rand-althor him?

He is mod at scifi...he loves Star Wars and Harry Potter series I guess

Possible

My sixth sense is tingling.

Now you can ask him!

2:43 PM

Sep 11 '16 at 18:45, by Rand al'Thor

Mithrandir and I consider it a matter of honour to not watch Star Wars.

@incesterror21 Mods on any site are mods all over chat.

@manshu I disdain Star Wars, and am no great fan of Harry Potter (although I have read all the books a few times and - shudder - seen the films.)

oh...it means you just know about them

?

know your enemy

haha

Oh good, someone else who dislikes star wars

2:45 PM

But rand isn't Lord Voldemort

Know your remedy.

no, yours, yaknow?

@manshu I gained quite a reputation for being able to provide good answers to questions about things I haven't read/watched.

I had a bronze tag badge in star-trek before ever watching any of that too.

at least you know what you're missing!

I can relate to it...My teacher thinks I am a bright student even if I am not

2:48 PM

I can't reliably tackle in-universe questions like "why did X do this", but anything which can be properly answered by Googling up some interview quotes is fair game.

I think we all did that in school, yes

hehe

sheshe

itit

gg

2:50 PM

Pronounpronoun

wp

(I am the master of subtlety)

@TheGreatEscaper Must be why you're so good at escaping.

Nah, I just like escape the room games.

I like escape the broom games.

2:51 PM

@manshu now I owe you a revenge. Mu ha ha.

@Deusovi I think this question is trying to ask about the validity of a particular answer, rather than about words in general. Maybe we can reopen it after my edit?

You will have it.. only when I will say 'hehe'...But I will never say 'hehe'

@manshu You just did.

^

hehe

2:54 PM

But I'll defer my revenge and keep you in suspense