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Dr. Shapiro's Puzzle of the Day

Today's Puzzle

Friday, January 29
I alphabetized the Proofniks! There's Will, Erica, Ellie, Elliot, Ella, Ena, Emil, Emmett, Reade, [105 names omitted], Michael, Marie, Matthew, Maddy, and Max.

What?

Oh.

Sorry, I thought that was how alphabetization worked.

Well, anyway, tell me the names of hypothetical Proofniks who, if they were to join the school, would come first in my list (before Will) and last (after Max).

Hint If dictionaries were alphabetized in this manner, the last entry would be a purely consonantal expression of pleasure from eating delicious food. And the first entry would be six letters, usually spelled in all caps... well, look, if I told you more, it would rather spoil the puzzle.

   


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Yesterday's Puzzle + Solution

Today, a few random questions about calligraphy:
  1.    Where is this famous W from?
  2.    Calligraphic letters are not always intuitive. Can you tell what letter this is? (You may see it in an advanced math textbook.)
  3. This bird elegantly embodies a phrase from what religion?

Solution
  1. It's the first letter (from "We the people...") in the Preamble to the U. S. Constitution.
  2. Confusingly, this is an S! It's written in an old German script called Fraktur, which fell out of use after World War II (because, like so many things, it had been appropriated and tainted by the Nazis). However, in their desperation to be able to write as many different S's as possible, some mathematicians tap deep reservoirs of typography once the Greek alphabet runs out.
  3. The bird is a gorgeous example of zoomorphic calligraphy (hey, Zachary, how about this -morphism?). I can't read Arabic, but the internet tells me this bird is an arrangement of the basmala from Islam.

Congratulations to yesterday's solvers Jacob C., Dr. Yetman, and Graham (who went 3 for 3). 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.