What do these four cities have in common?
Bonus puzzle for geography hotshots
What are THESE four cities that belong in the same group as the first four (albeit not quite as cleanly, due to language variation)?
Hints, going from west to east:
- This city is named in the Marines' Hymn.
- This city fits the theme under its old OR its new name.
- This city has a namesake (changing 'v' to 'b') in Sonoma County.
- This ancient city lies in ruins (and gives its name to a well-known graphic novel).
Today's puzzle requires some familiarity with the Periodic Table of the Elements. Feel free to consult a copy.
Mark Lorch has cleverly reimagined the Periodic Table as a subway map, but dastardly Dr. Shapiro has erased the names of some of the stations and subway lines. Can you figure out which four stations Hedgie-Wedgie is visiting above?
Solution
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IRON.
Nearby stations Titanium, Copper, and Zinc are elements 22, 29, and 30—a hint to just fill in the elements between in order.
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RADON.
The lavender line is a subset of the brown line (gases) and has just the right number of stops to be the noble gases. Assuming they go in order, with manmade Oganesson at the bottom, Hedgie must be visiting Radon.
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MERCURY.
Hmm, what's that black line with only two stops? It intersects the indigo line which, hmm, looks like the halogens—so that station would be Bromine. Aha, bromine is a liquid! Mercury is the only other element is a liquid at the standard 298 K. (A few elements melt juuust above 298 K, and that's where the dotted extensions of the black line go—only on weekdays, of course.)
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PROMETHIUM.
Oh dear, none of the three lines that intersect here are labeled. However, the magenta line sure looks like it hits all the radioactive elements. From there, labeling the halogens and noble gases and patiently applying the process of elimination is enough... but you might also intuit that the pale green line, with 15 elements, few connections to anything else, and a single radioactive element that isn't at either end sure seems like the lanthanoids!
You can see the full map on Futility Closet.
Congratulations to yesterday's solvers Jackson, Yana, Inca, and Lemonade. Thanks to everybody who made a guess!
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.