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Dr. Shapiro's Puzzle of the Day

Today's Puzzle

Tuesday, February 2
I woke up at 6:00 this morning and knew today's puzzle had to honor the holiday... but how?

Ah. Here we go.

Tell me the color of the fast boi seen at left. Make your answer three words, if you please: _____ ___ ____.

Hint

   


     Note: Clicking "Submit" will send your response to Dr. Shapiro.

Yesterday's Puzzle + Solution

Every year I torment friends, family, and myself with the King William's College General Knowledge Quiz, an outlandishly difficult trivia contest. (I don't think I've ever cracked 10%.)

This question appeared once on the quiz:

In which story was insomnia caused by a deeply hidden pulse?
I had little doubt about my answer—a story by a 19th century American master of the macabre. But as it turned out, that wasn't the answer at all. Can you guess what I guessed, and what the right answer was?

Hint #1 Consider all the definitions of pulse.

Hint #2 The answer was a well-known fairy tale.

Solution I was thinking of Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart, which is rather perfectly described by the clue. But the quiz was written for a British audience, for whom "pulse" is a common synonym for "legume". They were going for The Princess and the Pea.

Congratulations to yesterday's solvers Ena⓶, Anna K.⓶, Anna J., Peter M., Charlie, Jacob C.⓶, Hazel⓶, Peter and the V's⓶, Jason⓶, Graham, SG Zach⓶, and the Greggs⓶. 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.