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Dr. Shapiro's Puzzle of the Day

Today's Puzzle

Monday, March 15
Geometry quiz!
  1. "16 is better than 17, because 17 is worse than 16" is an example of what kind of flawed reasoning?
  2. "I'm so tired I could sleep for a hundred years" is an example of what rhetorical device, which is exaggeration taken to the extreme?
  3. What's another word for "exceedingly concise"? It's closely related to a punctuation symbol that indicates the omission of words.
  4. The answers to the questions above relate to three items in a traditional set of four. What I have left out?

   


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Yesterday's Puzzle + Solution

℧ is a common symbol for a unit of electrical conductance, defined as the reciprocal of 1 ohm. The official name for this unit is the siemens. However, what shorter name is also used?

Hint Outside of a room where physics is being discussed, this word is most likely to show up in a crossword puzzle. Such as...

Solution The reciprocal of 1 ohm? We'll call it a mho! (Some of you might have noticed that the symbol is an upside-down omega; ohm = Ω and mho = ℧.)

Here's the solution to the crossword:

Congratulations to yesterday's winners Atticus, Anna J., Jacob C., Peter M., Maddy, Charlie, Yana, Inca, Jason, Kate, Graham, Dr. Yetman, 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.