The words that give dictionary editors the biggest headaches are short words with fundamental meanings, like "go" and "red" and "of".
My challenge for you today: without consulting a dictionary, write a definition of "left" (the physical direction, as in "left side" or "left turn"). Avoid circular definitions (including "the opposite of right"). Bonus points if your definition would be meaningful to an extraterrestrial with no knowledge of Earth or its inhabitants... well, other than a working knowledge of English, which decades of sci-fi has taught me can be safely assumed. I will showcase your answers tomorrow.
During break, I read a novel partially set in Broken Hill, a town in the Australian outback which I presumed to be fictional, given the outlandish way it was described. But I looked it up, and it turns out that not only is it real, it looks more or less the way I pictured it.
Below are a few images of Broken Hill from Google Maps. Given what you see here, what do you think the strange landform at the center of town (south of B79 and north of Eyre St) is?
Tip: For optimum viewing, open one or two images at a time.
Map of Broken Hill
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Map detail (downtown)
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Street view, looking south toward B79
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Satellite view
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Solution
It's a mining complex. The biggest hint here, assuming you didn't simply recognize it from its appearance, is the street names in the maps (especially the second map), many of which are named for minerals and ores. Now, any city might have a Silver St or an Emerald Ln, but you won't find many towns with a Sulphide St or a Chloride St.
Broken Hill grew up around the mines, hence the odd disconnected street grid in the first map. I hiked around the town in Google Street View, and I can attest that the third picture here is typical; every street looking toward the center terminates in a view of the "mullock heap" (a human-made pile of mine tailings) surrounding the mine. Otherwise the landscape is quite flat, the original "broken hill" having been demolished. It's a good setting for the apocalyptic events of the novel I read, but I wouldn't want to live there irl.
Current mood: 😟
Current music: Midnight Oil, ♫ Blue Sky Mine ♫
Congratulations to yesterday's solvers Charlie, Peter M., Yana, Anna J., Mr. Gregg, Kate, and Dr. Yetman. Thanks to everybody who made a guess (I particularly liked "volcano").
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 November 2020.