One of my recent puzzles alluded to the five senses. But we actually have many more senses than those: our senses of time and temperature, for instance.
My one-year-old daughter and I have a game: she'll be in her high chair or in her mother's arms, and I'll lunge as if to gobble up her feet, with suitably monstery toothgnashing noises (as one does); she'll laugh and squeal and pull her feet in as far as she can retract them. These days, I only need to dart a significant glance toward her feet and the game is on. Her response shows that she has a well-developed sense of proprioception—the awareness of what?
A little baby laughter to brighten your morning
Yesterday's Puzzle + Solution
As I've mentioned on PotD before, I am partial to Webster's Third New International Dictionary, on which my grandfather was an editor. This dictionary held pride of place in the house where I grew up, always open on its own stand.
In 8th grade I won another copy as a prize in a spelling bee! That one came with me to college and now sits in my own living room. But either my prize was a cheaper edition or they don't make 'em like they used to; it lacks the full-color plates of my parents' edition with illustrations of gems, insects, and the like.
However, my copy of the dictionary still has *one* full-color plate, seen at left. (Forgive the "artsy" photograph. You try getting a 2800-page book to lie flat for the camera!)
This plate appears as part of the entry for what word?
Solution
Appropriately, the one full-color entry is for the word COLOR. Here it is in color.
Charlie asked what diagrams E–G represent. Those are views of the Munsell color solid, a rad geometric object whose points represent possible colors. The coordinates are hue, saturation, and lightness.
Congratulations to yesterday's solvers Anna J., Leo S., Yana, Charlie, Jessica, Newton, and the Greggs. 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 June 2020.
As I've mentioned on PotD before, I am partial to Webster's Third New International Dictionary, on which my grandfather was an editor. This dictionary held pride of place in the house where I grew up, always open on its own stand.
