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Dr. Shapiro's Puzzle of the Day

Today's Puzzle

Thursday, November 19
The other day, my 15-month-old daughter Mira made a joke: she deposited a segment of an orange in her empty water cup, pretended to "drink" it, then looked at me and laughed. Then she took the orange segment out of the cup, put it back in, and repeated the performance.

In honor of Mira's first (?) joke, here's a puzzle about a joke. What punchline has been blurred out in the classic comic strip at left?

BONUS, to keep things interesting for those who know their Calvin and Hobbes cold: What else could Calvin's drawing represent?

   


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Yesterday's Puzzle + Solution

   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"?

Solution It's a 🚂 steam locomotive 🚂. The 2-3-1 refers to the configuration of wheels on each side, in case you were curious. The composer is Arthur Honegger.

Congratulations to yesterday's solvers Hazel, Charlie, Inca, Maddy, Ruby, Anna J., Leo S., 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.