Timeline for Ridiculous problem from an old maths textbook
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
41 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| S May 8 at 10:26 | history | bounty ended | Sny | ||
| S May 8 at 10:26 | history | notice removed | Sny | ||
| May 6 at 20:54 | comment | added | Quuxplusone | I also think the flavortext is more harmful than helpful. It's simulating a bad SE question: you don't give the author or ISBN of the book, and you don't say what you've already tried, and so on. It would help to add that the problem came from Madthematics by Justin Q. Fooling, and when you ask Google about the book it just accuses you of making the whole thing up, and so on. "Corroborative detail, intended to remove verisimilitude from an otherwise bald and convincing narrative." | |
| S Apr 30 at 12:42 | history | bounty started | Sny | ||
| S Apr 30 at 12:42 | history | notice added | Sny | Draw attention | |
| S Nov 24, 2020 at 6:05 | history | bounty ended | CommunityBot | ||
| S Nov 24, 2020 at 6:05 | history | notice removed | CommunityBot | ||
| Nov 17, 2020 at 8:23 | history | edited | Anon | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Added hint
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| S Nov 16, 2020 at 4:54 | history | bounty started | oAlt | ||
| S Nov 16, 2020 at 4:54 | history | notice added | oAlt | Draw attention | |
| Jul 14, 2020 at 6:51 | answer | added | Physics Noob | timeline score: 12 | |
| Jul 4, 2020 at 2:36 | comment | added | Anon | @AlanHoover That may be coincidental. Try focussing on (a) each individual line RHS from a rebus/wordplay/cryptic clue point of view and (b) the whole thing from a mathematical point of view. That should be the best way to get a start on solving this puzzle. I honestly think most of those steps are reasonably straightforward... | |
| Jul 3, 2020 at 22:12 | comment | added | Alan Hoover | I notice that along with the previously noted bull image in the image, the overall image resembles a chess pawn. | |
| Jun 15, 2020 at 17:42 | comment | added | Deusovi♦ | As a counter to melfnt, I'm now more interested in looking at it! I didn't look too deeply into the puzzle at first and thought the story was real (only having skimmed it). | |
| Jun 15, 2020 at 13:03 | comment | added | Stiv | To add some balance to the comments here, personally I thought it was fairly clear all along that this was an original puzzle just playing on the trope of people coming to SE for advice (for one thing the book title is entirely fictional and turns up no Google search results) - especially having experienced some of the OP's other recent puzzles first-hand I've now got a sense of your style! Not to say that I think anything less of people who were fooled by it (I don't), but I just felt somebody ought to say that your effort to add interesting flavour-in-disguise was appreciated here! :) | |
| Jun 15, 2020 at 12:57 | comment | added | Anon | @melfnt Fair points! Apologies for any confusion - I certainly didn't intend to pass it off as a real puzzle - the background text was just for flavour! | |
| Jun 15, 2020 at 12:40 | comment | added | melfnt | @Mohirl personally I also thought it was a real puzzle (I think the confusion comes from the fact that some puzzles on this websites are actually real puzzles). However now I'm disappointed that it turned out it is an original one: I would have been more motivated in solving a real puzzle. | |
| Jun 15, 2020 at 12:29 | comment | added | Anon | @Mohirl Thanks for the suggestion. I'd honestly never imagined when I wrote the puzzle that my poor attempt to simulate a scanned textbook page would fool anyone, and I thought the flavourtext would be obviously so. Nevertheless, as several people appear to have been confused, I've added a clarification. | |
| Jun 15, 2020 at 12:27 | history | edited | Anon | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 653 characters in body
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| Jun 15, 2020 at 11:31 | comment | added | Mohirl | Maybe it's just me, but I found the flavour text a bit off-putting. It implies this is a puzzle taken out of context from the middle of a book, which might put people off if they feel there's potentially background information missing, or other puzzles in the book which build up to this one which might suggest a starting place. Making it clearer that this is an original puzzle might help it get more traction? | |
| Jun 13, 2020 at 11:38 | comment | added | Anon | @JacFrall <out of character> Of course I know the solution to the puzzle; I made it! ;) On another note, if anyone has had a go and is really stuck, I'm happy to post another hint, but I haven't felt like adding new hints merely for the purpose of bumping the question, since I can't really gauge the level of interest in it as there haven't been any substantial attempts to solve it (and I think a fair degree of partial progress could be made straightforwardly by following the hints, e.g. approaching it mathematically). </out of character> | |
| Jun 13, 2020 at 5:06 | comment | added | Jac Frall | @Anon it sounds like you know what a possible solution is. Do you mind sharing | |
| Jun 5, 2020 at 3:19 | comment | added | Anon | @DmitryKamenetsky Although having the solution be 'hung like a bull' would perhaps be amusing. | |
| Jun 5, 2020 at 3:13 | comment | added | Anon | @DmitryKamenetsky I would suggest approaching the problem more systematically, bearing my hint in mind. Trying to work out at least two of the methods of finding the solution, as stated in the hint, may prove a useful step... Perhaps see what else you can deduce by this first method of interpreting the RHS visually/semantically (rather than mathematically) and the four words will become more clear later. | |
| Jun 5, 2020 at 3:03 | comment | added | Dmitry Kamenetsky | It says that it's a four-word English phrase. I am pretty sure it contains the word bull. So according to idioms.thefreedictionary.com/bull it can be one of the following: "strong as a bull", "a load of bull", "cock and bull story", "hit the bull's-eye", "hung like a bull". | |
| May 26, 2020 at 12:56 | comment | added | Suzuna Minami | Ok @Anon sure.. | |
| May 26, 2020 at 12:52 | comment | added | Anon | @JohnBrookfields No all you need is the content that is in the pastebin in my first comment (and the details of that MathJax aren't important - all you need is the actual content of the page as printed (minus page no.) as if you were reading the puzzle in the book). Obviously the chapter wouldn't help, because it's not mentioned in my puzzle! | |
| May 26, 2020 at 12:52 | comment | added | Suzuna Minami | I asked the name of the book to see if there is any more clue in the book in any chapter, page etc. | |
| May 26, 2020 at 12:40 | comment | added | Anon | @JohnBrookfields I'm not sure what your first question means; the title of the book is not necessary for the puzzle. You can ignore the question mark if that makes it easier to understand... you simply have to find the solution to the puzzle (and therefore fill in the blank in the statement The solution to the puzzle is ____). | |
| May 26, 2020 at 12:31 | comment | added | Suzuna Minami | Also, the main thing is the thing in bold. I think a single blank will have the effect of asking the reader an answer. I mean: The solution to the puzzle is __________ . (Note the period) But the puzzles asks The solution to the puzzle is __________ ? (question mark). Just ______ would ask to fill the reader with the answer but why the "?" (redundant or a clue?) | |
| May 26, 2020 at 12:30 | comment | added | Suzuna Minami | Is the name of the book Basics of "MaDthematics" or just "Mathematics"? Could you please tell the author? | |
| May 26, 2020 at 7:20 | history | edited | Anon | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Added hint
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| May 16, 2020 at 7:32 | history | edited | Anon | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
OCD self discovered I'd put a verb at the end of a line and didn't like it. No change to meaning.
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| May 16, 2020 at 7:25 | comment | added | Anon | @DmitryKamenetsky Haha I assure you this puzzle is no bull! I'd imagine there's a visual component to some of the other lines as well, if not as immediately obvious. But there has to be more than just that, as the book says you can arrive at the solution by four different methods... | |
| May 16, 2020 at 7:13 | comment | added | Dmitry Kamenetsky | Well the four lines starting with X, E, O and arrow make a drawing of a cow with horns. That's as far as I got... maybe it's just "a load of bull" ;) | |
| May 15, 2020 at 20:26 | history | edited | Anon | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Moved informative comment to question
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| May 15, 2020 at 13:12 | comment | added | Anon | @APrough This may be relevant... | |
| May 15, 2020 at 13:11 | comment | added | APrough | Is there a possibility that the formatting is important? e.g. the section on X, E, O and I seem to look like a cow (or horse) head.... | |
| May 15, 2020 at 13:02 | history | edited | Anon | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Altered unimportant word choices
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| May 15, 2020 at 12:21 | comment | added | Anon | I’ve typed up the relevant parts of the page in MathJax here. Obviously, that's all you should need to solve the problem. | |
| May 15, 2020 at 12:19 | history | asked | Anon | CC BY-SA 4.0 |