Today's Puzzle
Wednesday, February 24
Water towers hold a lot of water. You might even think that holding water is their purpose, their
raison d'être.
But why store water in a tower? What other purpose does that serve that, say, an underground tank wouldn't?
BONUS PUZZLE: I've never been to Italy, but I have seen the glorious water tower at left in person. (It's in Florence, Kentucky.)
This water tower originally had a slightly different phrase painted on it, which had to be changed because it ran afoul of advertising laws. The city opted for the cheapest fix they could. What place of business did the water tower originally advertise?
Yesterday's Puzzle + Solution
This sentence in a recent news article made me chuckle:
To put it into proper perspective, there are 60 times more endangered condors in the wild as there are on a ____ ______.
A condor, of course, is a very large bird with a wild population of ~300 (see left). But the article was reporting the fifth known occurrence—anywhere, ever—of a very different kind of condor. The event reported in the article happened on a grassy site near the Oakland Zoo. What two words go in the blanks?
Hint 1 of 2
One might say the kind of condor referred to in the article requires a stroke of genius.
Solution
The answer is golf course. If you were looking for Hint 2 of 2, it was tucked away in yesterday's solution to the previous puzzle, which mentioned birdies and eagles (golf plays that are 1 or 2 strokes under par). This avian sequence continues: an albatross is 3 under par, and a condor is 4 under par! Here's the article I read: Oakland Golf Course Still Buzzing About Extremely Rare "Condor" Score
Congratulations to yesterday's winners Zach Z., Connor, Peter M., Leo S., Graham, 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.