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Dr. Shapiro's Puzzle of the Day

Today's Puzzle

Wednesday, November 18
   Note: You should see an audio player at left.

Close your eyes and listen...

This piece of music, Pacific 231, was written 97 years ago and is a portrait of a certain kind of machine (one specific type of which was called "Pacific 231"). The composer described its opening section as "the quiet respiration of the machine at rest, the effort of starting, and then the progressive increase of speed...".

What kind of machine is "Pacific 231"?

   


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Yesterday's Puzzle + Solution

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. 🤪

Solution Alpha was this year's 22nd named Atlantic tropical storm or hurricane, out of a record 30 so far. Tropical storms are named alphabetically for people (Arthur, Bertha, Cristobal...). Once all the common letters have been used in a given year—which has not usually happened in the past!—the names switch over to the Greek alphabet.

I think it would be cooler if the names switched to actual names written in Greek, like Ἀπόλλων (Apollo).

Congratulations to yesterday's solvers Anna J. (last seen in the Atlantic in 1976), Jacob C. (Pacific 2007), Charlie (Atlantic 2004, alias "Charley"), Yana (Pacific 2003 "Jana"), Cloe (Pacific 1995 "Chloe"), Kate (Atlantic 2015), Mr. Gregg (Pacific 2000 "Steve"), Dr. Yetman (Atlantic 2018 "Michael"). Note that Charlie, Michael, and Steve have been retired and will henceforth be replaced by Colin, Milton, and Stan.

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.