One of the first things you learn in a linguistics class is that the sound of a word has nothing to do with its meaning... except when it does. Onomatopoeic words like
buzz and
click are the obvious exception. But there are also word families like
bash, clash, crash, dash, gash, gnash, hash, lash, mash, slash, smash, splash, thrash
These verbs don't share a root word, but it sure looks like the
-ash sound symbolizes collision and violence in English.
So, two questions:
- How many sn- words can you think of that have something to do with noses? Send me your list!
- Think of as many words as you can starting with gl-. What element of meaning do a lot of them have in common?
Of the 340,000+ entries in the On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, just 99 have the distinction of being tagged as "dumb". (Thanks to Peter V. for making me aware of this.)
Here's an example of a dumb sequence: 3, 2, 1, 7, 4, 1, 1, 8, 5, 2, 9, 8, …. What is it? Why, it's the digits of π alternating with the digits of e!
Today I have three questions for you about dumb sequences.
-
The numbers 10, 170, 2730, 43690, … are called screaming numbers. Why?
Hint
A non-decimal number base is involved.
-
The sequence 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 16, 20, 22, 26 has an entry. So does the same sequence with 26 removed. These are labeled as the "American" and "British" versions. What are they?
Hint
Each number represents a letter.
-
Which sequence goes 1, 2, 3, 95, 98, 2000, 7, 8, 10?
Hint
This is computer-related. A competing sequence (which is either not in the OEIS, or not tagged as dumb) recently got its first new term in twenty years: 11.
Solution
- In base 16, these numbers are written as A, AA, AAA, AAAA, ….
- If A=1, B=2, C=3, etc., then this sequence represents the letters BCDEGPTV(Z). Those are all the letters that rhyme with E. (In British English, Z is "zed".)
- These are version numbers for the Windows operating system (excluding those with letters in them, like XP and Vista).
Explore all 99 dumb sequences! Some of them are even dumber than these!
Congratulations to yesterday's solvers Leo S., Jacob C., Connor, Atticus, and Mr. and Mrs. Gregg. Thanks to everybody who made a guess!
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.