The Sphinx's Lair

12:00 AM

The runner-up is this one with ten self-deleted answers. Evidently it was very easy to go wrong in analysing that puzzle!

Ankoganit

3:23 AM

Cool. I've been trying to translate the following:
В выпуклом n-угольнике провели все стороны, а также все диагонали из одной вершины. На полученных 2n − 3 отрезках написали положительные числа. Разрешается шается взять четырехугольник ABCD такой, что все его стороны и диагональ AC— проведенные отрезки, стереть диагональ AC, провести диагональ BD и написать на ней число (xz + yt)/w, где x, y, z, t, w — числа на отрезках AB, BC, CD, DA, AC соответственно. Докажите, что если в какой-то момент проведенными окажутся те же 2n − 3 отрезка, что в начале, то на них будут написаны те же числа, что и…

So I was wondering if someone here could help me...

(And BTW, Google's translation doesn't make much sense.)

Alconja

4:26 AM

So, the rules for nominating puzzles for the quarterly awards, say no more than 3 noms per user...

But here's a few of my other "highly commended" list:

47

Q: Alice and the Fractal Hedge Maze

This is an entry to the 12th fortnightly challenge. Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here? Cheshire Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to. Alice: I don't much care where... Cheshire Cat: Then it doesn't much matter which way you go! ...

mazes

40

Q: A-maze-ing Dice

This is an entry to the 12th fortnightly challenge "So you have escaped my labyrinth of words, and now you think you are free, do you? Well, I have news for you: Think again! Ha Ha Ha Ha" Having just left the maze of words, your spirits sink to an all-time low, when the omnipresent voice of ...

visual mazes three-dimensional

13

Q: Race to the Past: A Historical Scavenger Hunt

This was intended to be for History Fortnight, but I didn't quite get it finished up in time. (I now have a history of just missing these cutoffs.) Here's the puzzle, though you'll definitely need the bigger version to have a go at it. Notes The final answer is a person who would've been q...

visual cryptic-clues anagram crosswords history

And if someone else happens to nominate any of them (by pure coincidence I'm sure), then all's the better...

Alconja

5:16 AM

Oh, and this one:

29

Q: Reassemble the riddles!

I'd just finished writing four short 4-line riddles, painstakingly making sure each line was correct, when a wind caught the slips of paper I'd been using to write on and blew them all over the floor. Quickly I picked them up again, but the order of them was lost. I'd written each line of each ri...

riddle reverse-puzzling

Gareth McCaughan

9:03 AM

@Ankoganit Here's my best guess, based not on any expertise in Russian but on the Google Translate "translation" and some guessing at what might make mathematical sense. Take a convex n-gon. Draw all the sides, and the diagonals from one vertex, making 2n-3 lines in all. Attach a positive number to each of these. Now you're allowed to do the following: [...ciontinues]

... if ABCD is a quadrilateral where the lines AB,BC,CD,DA and AC are all drawn, you can remove AC, replace it with BD, and label that with (xz+wy)/t where wxyz were the numbers along the edges and t was the number on the diagonal you just removed. [... continues]

Now you have to prove that if you do this for a while and at the end you have the same set of lines present as you had at the beginning, they all have the same numbers on them as at the beginning.

One thing that isn't clear but doesn't matter: is there a requirement that diagonal BD be absent when you do the thing? It doesn't matter because if that ever isn't so then you have fewer lines after than before and therefore can never get back where you started.

One thing that isn't clear but might matter: does ABCD have to be a well-behaved polygon where the sides don't cross? I have a very handwavy reason for thinking it might matter, but haven't solved the problem or anything.

That word mistranslated "crease" by Google Translate might actually be there to disambiguate this but without knowing what it actually is and what it actually means it's hard to tell.

(AFK for a bit now.)

Ankoganit

9:43 AM

@GarethMcCaughan How can one possibly get a self-intersecting quad. ? Because nothing is self-intersecting at the outset, and no step can make something intersect additionally. Or I might be missing something...

Thank you for your attention anyway... :)

Gareth McCaughan

10:03 AM

@Ankoganit aha, I think you're right. So, I think the only things whose meanings I was really unsure of are things that don't matter.

Lukas Rotter

10:33 AM

That moment when your mouse cursor is on the "Post Your Question" button but you're just too paranoid that you made some mistake in the puzzle or that it's too hard/easy, so you don't dare to click it yet... :P

6

user189275

11:28 AM

@Ankoganit: Now what's wrong at my third attempt at solving your puzzle ?

Puzzling — BOUNTY!

12:09 PM

22

Q: They've Noticed Your Puzzling Prowess

They came to your home in the early hours and whisked you away. The four by four's windows were completely blacked out but the agents seemed amicable enough, albeit fairly taciturn. After a while you felt like you would have started to doze had it been an ordinary journey you were making at this...

story computer-puzzle mazes

Saiid

New puzzle? lol

Rand al'Thor

12:41 PM

@Gareth puzzling.stackexchange.com/a/43672/5373

dcfyj

@Randal'Thor I didn't see that Bahama puzzle. Did the idea fall through? :P

Rand al'Thor

@LukasRotter Oh yes, I know that feeling. Perfectionism can be such a pain.

dcfyj

Also, clever riddle set.

Rand al'Thor

@dcfyj Damn, sorry, I forgot about it. And now I have only a vague recollection of what my idea was. On the bright side, if I write it now, you can solve it! :-)

How was the trip?

dcfyj

It was good, had a ton of fun.

@Randal'Thor You had a week and a half and you didn't post it :P shame on you.

I don't even remember what you said you were going to make it about lol

Although speaking of puzzles, I should probably finish part 3 or my desert wanderings, shame on me

Rand al'Thor

12:52 PM

@dcfyj A ton of fun, booze on a cruise, lots of shots, peein' in the Caribbean.

(I'm not trying to imply anything - don't even know whether you drink - but the rhyming worked so well that I couldn't resist :-) )

dcfyj

Haha, no I don't and didn't drink any booze, didn't pee in the Caribbean either (or swim in it for that matter)

Ankoganit

@ArbitraryKangaroo Where?

Gareth McCaughan

@Randal'Thor excellent. (Of course your answer to my question about the double "in" made it obvious that it was deliberate, but what thought I gave it was more around terms like "actually" or "really"; I never thought of IRL.)

Ankoganit

BTW is this really text-book style? There are already 2 close-votes ? D:

Rand al'Thor

@GarethMcCaughan Ah, so I was too obvious in that answer? I'll have to start making typos and refusing to correct them so that nobody knows whether they're part of the puzzle or not :-P

@Ankoganit No. I voted to leave open.

Ankoganit

1:05 PM

@Randal'Thor Nice, I thought so.

Russian problems are always cool anyway.

Rand al'Thor

translate: В выпуклом n-угольнике провели все стороны, а также все диагонали из одной вершины.

(from Russian) The convex n-ugol′nike held by all parties, as well as all the diagonal from one vertex.

Hmm, I recognise some of these words, @Ankoganit.

Ankoganit

ugol'nike?!

Rand al'Thor

B = in, все = all, где = where, что = what, и = and.

translate: Разрешается шается взять четырехугольник ABCD такой

(from Russian) Allowed decreasing take Quad ABCD such

Right, четырехугольник = quadrilateral. I thought so.

translate: числа на отрезках AB, BC, CD, DA, AC соответственно

(from Russian) the number of the segments AB, BC, CD, DA, AC respectively

Ankoganit

Gareth already made a guess, so you can check that.

Rand al'Thor

translate: проведенные отрезки, стереть диагональ AC, провести диагональ BD и написать на ней число

(from Russian) conducted to erase lines, diagonal AC hold diagonal BD and write the number

@Ankoganit Oh, I hadn't seen that.

Saiid

1:10 PM

I'm trying to make a

whoops

a 'what is a word™' puzzle

but i can't think of what to do for it

Rand al'Thor

A whoops is a hard thing to make :-P

3

Saiid

it is

I've never been able to make a whoops that comes out right

dcfyj

@Randal'Thor Not really, people make those all the time

Sid

1:30 PM

Still, no one has got my puzzle :-(

I even added a hint... I am getting frustrated..

Rand al'Thor

@Sid So there's more of a cipher than just Morse code ... but what kind of cipher?

There are many ways to extract strings of gibberish from that letter which might become meaningful if some cipher was applied to them.

Sid

You had it, on sunday, I think, And the cipher won't be too much of a pain.. You need to find just which letters to take..

Rand al'Thor

yesterday, by Rand al'Thor

FHZ(T)BS(Y)CUENFR

@Sid ^ ?

Sid

Yeah..

Rand al'Thor

(says "yesterday" for some reason, but it was Sunday)

Sid

1:41 PM

Might be some weird time-zone

Rand al'Thor

I tried sticking that ciphertext into quipqiup, but nothing really jumped out at me in the list of results.

Sid

I thought you could do the cipher in your head

Rand al'Thor

Why, is it something simple like Caesar or Atbash?

Sid

I gave you a hint.. You don't expect me to say you the answer, do you?

Rand al'Thor

No, just thinking aloud really :-)

Sconibulus

1:45 PM

Rot13 gives something not entirely meaningless

Sid

@Sconibulus Thank you!! At last

Rand al'Thor

Yep, editing now ...

Sid

Now, comes the controversial part... I apologise in advance, for my lack of English skills... For the answer might not be obvious as I made some modifications..

Rand al'Thor

Hmm ... so we need to split the message into phrases?

Or does "phrase" mean sentence, perhaps?

Sconibulus

counting the phrases, and summing across the paragraphs, I might have gotten OKY?

but that doesn't make a lot of sense

Sid

1:55 PM

The cryptic clues tag comes in... and your idea is completely off track. The answer will give a single word and that will be a part answer...

Rand al'Thor

I'm thinking to somehow combine the two clues we've found so far.

I.e. summing up phrases in some way, and then maybe even and odd numbers give dots and dashes for Morse code. Something like that.

Sid

They are mutually exclusive and as a whole give the final answer

And do think why a student would have disastrous results..

Saiid

so the parts of the whole don't reveal the whole of the parts?

xP

Rand al'Thor

@Sid Because they spent their time mucking around instead of working?

Sid

And?? WHat else??

"Sum of Phrase" mean entirely different from what you have originally thought. Maybe, I should add another tag

Rand al'Thor

2:06 PM

P+H+R+A+S+E

Sconibulus

sum is pretty unambiguous... phrase could be music?

Rand al'Thor

16+8+18+1+19+5 = 67

Sid

@Randal'Thor You should probably try to solve the morse code, you would get a better idea of what this could be..

Sconibulus

phrase could maybe be a homophone for frays? meaning something like conflict or warfare?

Sid

I probably shouldn't have used this.. English isn't exactly my suit and the answer wouldn't be probably too convincing

Rand al'Thor

2:11 PM

@Sid I'm still not sure where to find the Morse code though. My best guess so far has been the punctuation, but that hasn't given me any results.

Sid

You wrote most of it on your answer and then unnecessarily added many others

Rand al'Thor

You mean that bunch of E's, G's, and N's?

Saiid

lol i wonder if the puzzle is truly solvable without revealing all it's secrets

Sid

@Saiid There is no secret. They have found the main things... Just need to clear the final line

Saiid

@Sid lol the finish line is hidden in the shrubbery, then?

Sid

2:16 PM

Sometimes, you expect the OP to be too clever and he is not.. :-p

Saiid

lol

would you guys take a look at this puzzle? puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/43678/7777-6666-212

Sconibulus

@Saiid well, I found AN answer, I'm kinda suspecting there are dozens

Saiid

2:31 PM

@Sconibulus you cheated :P

Sconibulus

Oh, I thought I was following the rules, sorry

Saiid

@Sconibulus Your answer technically violates the second rule xP

Sconibulus

It does? They stay in place, and the division is performed

oh, is it because I had it only divide part of the 6666 construct?

dcfyj

I don't see how that would be wrong, another rule says only 1 digit calculations

Sconibulus

oh, wait, I used division more than once, oops

Saiid

2:36 PM

that too

I believe you were attempting to use a loophole in the 4th rule. I added another rule to fix that problem

dcfyj

@Saiid can you use () for multiplication? ie: (6)6=36

Rand al'Thor

@Sid I just tried a different grouping of punctuation ... still no joy.

Maybe I should be using the other punctuation marks (apostrophes etc.) as well?

Or even the dots over the i's?

Sid

No.. other punctuation look good.. that's their job

Saiid

@dcfyj No, () are purely for grouping

dcfyj

2:51 PM

If you can only do 2 numbers at a time grouping isn't particularly useful...

Saiid

not necessarily. it can be useful.

dcfyj

What happens if you get a negative number in the middle, does that make the whole negative, or does it cause a duplicate subtraction?

Saiid

that's a good question. I'd say it makes the whole thing negative, since if it caused subtraction, that could be used to violate the 3rd rule while still being within the rules

dcfyj

ok

Rand al'Thor

3:07 PM

Woo, passed 35k.

Saiid

@Randal'Thor nice. btw, i didn't know you were a moderator xD

Sconibulus

does 6/(6+6) = 62 or 1/2?

dcfyj

pretty sure that would equal 62

Rand al'Thor

@Saiid Moderator = blue name in chat :-)

dcfyj

since 6+6 is 12, you put it back in to get 612 and then divide 6/1 to get 6

Saiid

3:11 PM

@Randal'Thor Ah. Question - what would happen if I flagged your post for a moderator?

@Sconibulus 62, 6+6=12, 6/1=6, then put back in for 62.

Rand al'Thor

@Saiid In chat? I would see the flag (and, technically, could probably even dismiss it myself).

Saiid

@Randal'Thor lol.

How long have you been on SE?

Rand al'Thor

@Saiid A little over two years as a member (though I was a lurker on SFF since 2012).

Saiid

@Randal'Thor Oh wow. That's a long time. xD

Rand al'Thor

How about you?

Saiid

3:21 PM

@Randal'Thor Almost a month

Sconibulus

crap, I made a stupid mistake...

but I can defend the equality -0=0

dcfyj

@Sconibulus I don't think it works that way haha

Saiid

@Sconibulus -0=0, 2=/=-2

I literally need one more rep point to downvote stuff

Sconibulus

@Saiid but if 0=-0, then in this math -02=02, and -02 would clearly equal -2 :)

Saiid

@Sconibulus you sneaky little thing

@Sconibulus I declare it invalid

Sconibulus

3:34 PM

I suppose that's fair

dcfyj

@Saiid But if you get that 1 rep and go downvote something you won't be able to downvote again until you get 2 rep :P

Saiid

@dcfyj True

@dcfyj But if I ignore my schoolwork then I can make a puzzle to earn it back quickly

Sconibulus

what happens if you get something like (2/3)6

does that just stay 2/3?

because .66666...6

dcfyj

look at the rounding rule

Saiid

+1

lel

my rules are not quite perfect

but they work in most instances

dcfyj

3:43 PM

Do the operators have to all be used in the beginning or can the be used one at a time. ie: 6+6 = 12, 1*2 = 2

Saiid

they can be used however you want as long as it follows the rules

dcfyj

oh, in that case I have a solution ^^

Sconibulus

It says you can round, not that you must

Saiid

someone just downvoted both my math problems for no reason

Sconibulus

Oh, wait, you can add symbols after operations are complete?

Saiid

3:45 PM

they didn't even leave a comment

yes, but not the negative symbol

you can do operations after other operations

dcfyj

That's why I was confused about the (), they seemed really useless to me

Saiid

@dcfyj some people prefer to show it all at once instead of typing out each step

Jonathan Allan

@Deusovi @ffao @Anton; after all your hard work that last little step has been completed:

1

A: They've Noticed Your Puzzling Prowess

Partial solution to "Maze 5"

dcfyj

@Saiid The thing is though, what I'm talking about can't be written in one line as it uses the answer from one equation ie: 6*6 = 36 and puts another operator on it ie: 3-6 = -3

@Saiid I just put my answer down, if it's unclear what I meant here in chat, I think it'll be clear now haha.

Saiid

4:05 PM

@dcfyj Yeah, I was saying you could just put the equation down without showing the work, as I usually check it anyway

Deusovi

@JonathanAllan Oh man, that was it? I was thrown off by the perfect square thing.

Jonathan Allan

yeah I made sure it would be a square prime in length :D

red herring...

just noticed your entry on the star board, how apt

Deusovi

hehe, yeah

user189275

@Ankoganit: As a comment to your answer.

ffao

@JonathanAllan so simple u.u how is that text a final solution?

Jonathan Allan

4:19 PM

it gives the passcode in the plaintext

Maybe it should say "So I enter 'GNIKCARTKCAB'"

Saiid

i found the words 'knight' and 'cab' in that string

Sconibulus

Backtracking

but, you know, backwards

user189275

It's probably basic substituition

user189275

Brute force choose n.

Sid

@JonathanAllan That puzzle would have taken a hell of a lot of time to make. I am probably going to nominate it for the quarterly puzzle stuff...

Jonathan Allan

4:27 PM

Thanks, it did take a while, yeah

Sconibulus

:32714253 Do you feel shame :)

Jonathan Allan

can't star deleted messages

user189275

@Sconibulus: What ?

user189275

I'm so stupid, that I didn't actually notice you found it.

Jonathan Allan

how do you miss "cart"?

dcfyj

4:30 PM

Yeah! I got my second tick ever!

user189275

Who missed what ?

Jonathan Allan

where is the "h" for "knight"?

dcfyj

Just bend one of the 'k's a little

Jonathan Allan

:p

user189275

@JonathanAllan It's gone for a while, it will soon come back.

ffao

4:31 PM

I would have been happier if the final passcode were a link to a new image that said you're done or something like that

Even the guy who solved it thought it was a partial solution

But it's a minor thing for your next puzzles

Jonathan Allan

Well it does say congratulations Agent g...

but I did think to have a final pic, but thought that that could be misinterpreted as another puzzle

dcfyj

@JonathanAllan Be honest, your puzzle never ends.

3

Jonathan Allan

^^

ffao

I'm thinking that's only as far as he got when he applied to Base 62

dcfyj

People will be solving it until the end of time, maybe beyond that, who knows.

Jonathan Allan

4:35 PM

No idea how to give any hint (as requested by @DanRussell) to A Strange Correspondence...

last activity 3 months ago

22

Q: A Strange Correspondence

I voted to delete some questions on another SE site from two users due to them being garbled nonsense.* However when I got to the sixth I thought something looked suspicious, it looked to me like an encrypted correspondence since all the titles were fairly normal but all the posts were just stri...

story cipher language

dcfyj

I forgot about that one

Jonathan Allan

and I thought it would be solved within the week :/

dcfyj

Clearly much harder than you thought it was

Jonathan Allan

clearly

dcfyj

The last one looks like it's all Russian, but I'm guessing it's not.

Jonathan Allan

4:41 PM

the last message is all lowercase Cyrillic as noted by humn in the CW

dcfyj

I would decode it, but I'm horrible at breaking ciphers and only so-so at making them.

user189275

4:56 PM

@Ankoganit: I finally checked with sides in a^n with a picture, and seems to work when hand drawn.

Ankoganit

@ArbitraryKangaroo The joke answer is obviously not ok. And I don't get the GP thing you vaguely mentioned.

Sid

I have been officially infected by the puzzling bug..

3

Ankoganit

@ArbitraryKangaroo oh wow! I recommend posting it as an answer. I won't be able to check it now though...I am sleepy

user189275

@Ankoganit: I know that, but you should add some more instruction. I was telling about the mutual distances to be in geometric progression, i.e 1 (obviously wlog), and then t^(n) for the remaining ones. But a triangle is t^(i), t^(2i) and t^(3i).

user189275

Not hundred percent sure, but I feel it may work.

Ankoganit

4:59 PM

@Sid officially?!

@ArbitraryKangaroo sound good!

Sid

Yeah, managed to write, 4x3=21!! in my maths paper!!...

Still can't believe that happened..

I probably read it backwards as 12..

user189275

@Ankoganit: But the picture is extremely horribly clunky, and if this is not correct, I am gonna make a mistake hattrick.

user189275

Including my two stupid attempts.

user189275

I actually excepted it to make a nice symmetric tile or something like that, but that's why I'm unsure. (And if I don't make my fourth mistake, my picture degenaretes to the joke answer when t = 1)

user189275

@Ankoganit: What's my mistake this time ?

Ankoganit

5:07 PM

@ArbitraryKangaroo all that I'll say is an ugly picture is not too unlikely. ;)

Okay, gotta go to bed now. Good night!

user189275

@Sid: RHS is in Base 3, and the trailing zero is missing.

user189275

@Ankoganit: You woke up ?

Ankoganit

Just came in check this room before finally sleeping.

user189275

@Ankoganit: Well, did I made a mistake ? I can't sleep, this is puzzling me terribly.

Ankoganit

@ArbitraryKangaroo I think you didn't, because your approach is similar to what I've in mind.

And do sleep well, it's good for your health :)

user189275

5:17 PM

@Ankoganit: I can't sleep, unless I get rid of this puzzle from my head.

user189275

Some symmetrical solution may arise while manipulating the dots in:

user189275

(I am not finding the picture; its of a puzzle where you have to balance three icecream sticks make like three Y or something like that on its own)

user189275

I have some proof, but I won't post unless I find a good/symmetric solution (or a disproof that it doesn't exist)

user189275

It -> The good solution; not disproving the puzzle.

dcfyj

What puzzle are you talking about?

Sconibulus

5:28 PM

nobody knows :)

Chris Cudmore

Added a partial answer to puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/43293/…

The "China in her hand. China in her hand" probably means Double Decker, but I can't get the Decker out of the cryptic clue.

Any ideas?

Deusovi

China in Your Hand

"China in Your Hand" is a song by the British band T'Pau, released from their album Bridge of Spies. A re-recorded version was released as a single in October 1987, spending five weeks at number one in the UK and is arguably the song for which the group is best known in their native Britain, though their debut single "Heart and Soul" was a much bigger hit in the United States. "China in Your Hand" was the 600th single to top the UK charts and kept George Harrison's "Got My Mind Set on You" from hitting the top spot. In 2015 the song was voted by the British public as the nation's 11th favourite...

@ChrisCudmore Sung by Carol Decker.

(Also, these aren't cryptic clues. They don't have a definition. :/ )

Chris Cudmore

@Deusovi OP did say he left off the definition.

Deusovi

Whoops, somehow didn't notice that.

Chris Cudmore

that's a bit too obscure for most.

I've never heard of T'Pau outside of Star Trek.

Saiid

6:11 PM

I've never heard T'Pau in Star Trek :P

dcfyj

6:35 PM

What about Utapau? (I know, not Star Trek)

Rosie F

6:46 PM

@Saiid The pop group was named after the Vulcan in Star Trek.

Saiid

@RosieF which series? I don't remember any named T'Pau

You know what I just realized? You can get an RSS feed for specific tags :P

Rosie F

@Saiid startrek.com/database_article/tpau

Sconibulus

Oh, would asking about this room be on-topic? vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/arrow/images/b/b2/Time_Vault.png/…

because I want to know about it, but it also might not actually have an answer

or, well, I guess this link's probably more helpful: arrow.wikia.com/wiki/Time_Vault

Saiid

@RosieF oh

Saiid

8:54 PM

Haha 20 hours after my problem about getting 1150 was posted, my newest puzzle with 7777/6666 got to 1150 views

Lukas Rotter

9:20 PM

Can questions that [A) are about a self-created board-game (for the puzzle) as the primary element, B) only involve the board game as a "secondary element", e.g. a cipher for which you get the key or something by analyzing the moves on a board-game, C) A and B] be tagged with board-games, or does it have to be a known board-game which is also the primary element (e.g. generalisation/best strategy)?

Or can you tag just about anything that involes a board game with board-games and I'm overthinking this?

Deusovi

I'd say any of those can be tagged board-games.

Saiid

@LukasRotter I agree with Deusovi

Deusovi

I don't think anyone would complain if you created a board game just for a puzzle.

Saiid

It would probably earn more upvotes for the creativity

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