Today's Puzzle
Tuesday, November 17
On September 18 this year, "Alpha" made its first appearance since 2005 in what context? Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, Theta, and Iota have already followed in its wake.
Hint
Before Alpha, obviously, was Wilfred. 🤪
Yesterday's Puzzle + Solution
Solution
The answer is HEX. Clockwise from the top, the pictures depict a hex sign, base 16 (hex) digits, a hex key (a.k.a. Allen wrench), a witch's hex, Catan hex tiles, and climber's hexes. Not coincidentally, the six pictures were themselves arranged to form a hexagon.
Solution to Friday's bonus puzzle
The two pairs of alphabetically consecutive U. S. states that border each other are Florida/Georgia and Illinois/Indiana.
Congratulations to yesterday's solvers Leo S., Peter M., Maddy, Yana, Jacob C., Charlie, Mr. Gregg, and Graham (and Friday bonus solvers Rachel, Jessica, Anna J., Jacob C., Yana, Maddy, Graham, and Mr. Gregg). 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.