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Dr. Shapiro's Puzzle of the Day

Today's Puzzle

Monday, March 22
When NASA engineer Homer Hickam Jr.'s memoir was made into a movie, the title was changed from ______ Boys to _______ Sky, an anagram of the original title. Can you fill in the missing words? The first word refers to the hobby that became Hickam's career, while the second refers to the time of year that the Sputnik satellite was launched, an event that inspired Hickam.

   


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Yesterday's Puzzle + Solution

So you've taken combinatorics? Well, let's see if you can count.

Most pop songs have 4 beats to the measure. You can count "1, 2, 3, 4" and stay on the beat. Try it on Beck's "E-Pro":  

Some tunes have 3 beats per measure, like Shostakovich's "Waltz #2":  

Then there are the oddballs, like Dave Brubeck's "Take Five" (the count is in the title):  

Your challenge for today is to count some unusual rhythms. Some of these are alternating meters, meaning not all measures are the same length. For example, 3+2 would be alternating measures of 3 beats and 2 beats, in which case I would accept 3+2 or 5 as an answer. Happy counting!

  1. (Nice and slow)
  2. (You can do it)
  3. (Uh oh)
  4. (Help!)
  5. (uhhhhhh)
  6. (😱)

Solution Here are the songs and my count for each:
  1. Pink Floyd, "Money", 7
  2. Deerhoof, "Fresh Born" (intro), 4+3+2+1 = 10
  3. Charming Hostess, "Dali Tzerni", 9 (Bulgarian music, man)
  4. Frank Zappa, "Big Swifty", 7+6 = 13 (or maybe 7/8, 3/4?)
  5. Fiona Apple, "On I Go", 29, see below
  6. Alan Shavarsh Bardezbanian, "Sedi Donka", (3+2+2)+(3+2+2)+(2+2+3+2+2) = 7+7+11 = 25 (and I say again: Bulgarian music, man)
Now, I am not a pro at this stuff, so I was relieved when actual pros like Jason reported the totals I was expecting. The division of beats into bars was more ambiguous, especially for "On I Go", whose vocals and percussion don't exactly line up. While I heard "On I Go" as 7+7+7+8, some of you heard 7+7+8+7, 6+7+7+9, 6+7+7+3+3+3, or even 13+13+3. Fiona Apple, man.

Enjoy a YouTube playlist of all six songs! (Discretion advised: a couple of the songs have some brief salty language.)

Congratulations to yesterday's solvers Tom🎶, Yana🎶, Peter M., Maddy, Alex Z., Jason🎶, Graham🎶, and Dr. Yetman🎶. 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.