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

Today's Puzzle

Wednesday, October 28
What title/name is shared by the four "quartets" below? (If you don't know, look closely at the artwork! You can make an educated guess.)
Bonus Question Whose violin concertos would make a good soundtrack for today's puzzle?

   


     Note: Clicking "Submit" will send your response to Dr. Shapiro.

Yesterday's Puzzle + Solution

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:

  1. This city is named in the Marines' Hymn.
  2. This city fits the theme under its old OR its new name.
  3. This city has a namesake (changing 'v' to 'b') in Sonoma County.
  4. This ancient city lies in ruins (and gives its name to a well-known graphic novel).

Solution All four cities end in -polis (Greek for "city"). From left to right, they are Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Annapolis, and Metropolis.

The bonus cities are Tripoli, Istanbul (not Constantinople), Sevastopol, and Persepolis. These all share the -polis root despite the variety of spellings. Istanbul literally just means "to the city". You know how people all over the Bay Area call San Francisco "the city"? Well, people near Constantinople called Constantinople "the city", and that's how it got the name Istanbul.

Congratulations to yesterday's solvers Jacob C.🌇, Charlie🌇 (who also suggested Heliopolis, Egypt), Yana🌇, Anna J., Connor, Atticus, Mr. Gregg, Zachary S., Kate, and Graham. (The 🌇 means full points on the bonus puzzle too.) 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.