H E L L O
my name is
Dr. Shapiro's Puzzle of the Day

Today's Puzzle

Thursday, May 6
On Tuesday, I asked you to decipher tax logic; today, let's see if you can replicate some toddler logic.

My daughter is starting to learn the alphabet. She points to a letter, we tell her what it is, and she repeats it back to us. But W brought her up short. After listening to it three times, what did she "repeat" back to us? (I was actually pretty proud of her mistake.)

   


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Yesterday's Puzzle + Solution

This piece of music was written in 1902. What is it best known for today?

Hint
Stop teasing and give me a real hint Listen at 0:12.

Solution Tárrega's Gran Vals was appropriated by Nokia for their standard ringtone.

Congratulations to yesterday's solvers Inca, Connor, Anna J., Maddy, Dr. Yetman, and Graham, who points out that this puzzle would have played easier in 1999 (touché). 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 2020 to March 2021.