Today's Puzzle
Friday, January 8
Yesterday's puzzle was a real stumper, but one person got it: Hazel (Class of '20)! I've added new hints and will keep the puzzle up for another day.
Can you match these six literary items to their positions on the ruler?
Original Hint
To make everything fit, I used a logarithmic ruler. The ruler runs from 100 to 105.
New Hint #1
Each picture represents a word from the title of a well-known book. (You might know some of them better as movies.)
New Hint #2
Each of those books has an associated number (not the numbers 1–6 next to the drawings—those are just for identification).
New Hint #3
Here's how you read numbers off a log ruler:
Yesterday's Puzzle + Solution
What town's name is covered up on this map? (Don't know it? You can still guess!)
Solution
Take Mexicali and reverse it (sort of) to get the answer, Calexico!
In retrospect, this wasn't as guessable as I thought; several of you got the idea, but came up with answers like Calimexi, Cofornia, or my favorite, Calico.
Congratulations to yesterday's solvers Jacob C., Inca, Yana, and Mr. Gregg. Thanks to everybody who made a guess!
About This Site
Though he now teaches mathematics, Dr. (né Mr.) Shapiro's first job in a K–12 school was as a lunch monitor in Davis, CA. It was there that he originated the Puzzle of the Day, even rewarding correct answers with tickets in denominations like "15 points" (though without a clear idea of how he'd ultimately redeem these). Dr. Shapiro's favorite puzzle from this pre-professional era was "Tell me the location of the beehive on this campus."
Ten years later, Dr. Shapiro revived Puzzle of the Day at Proof School, writing each day's puzzle on a name tag. After 600 puzzles or so, he was just starting to feel normal about students reading his chest all the time when campus closed and the puzzle, like the rest of our lives, moved online. New puzzles are posted daily on school days.
Want to catch up on old PotDs? There's an archive currently containing puzzles from March to December 2020.