Infuriating Puzzle

quote:

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The answer is a sequence of six letters and/or numbers.

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is it a calculated sequence or can we just make one up?

John,
Once the question starts to make sense the answer should be easy to reach.

A certain degree of manipulation might be required to obtain the answer - or it might just come to you in a flash.

Actually, it could be argued that there are at least three possible answers. Although I am expecting a particular one, any of them will be accepted if the remaining lines are also given.

But if you get an answer without also giving the missing lines then I won't be able to confirm whether or not it's the right answer.

OK, it's past midnight and I intend to be away from the forum for most or all of Sunday so here is today's line.

According to Don,

quote:

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and one line will contain two characters representing a single entry but this line isn't really needed to find the solution, but....it will be accepted as a valid solution if identified soon enough.

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In fact, this line was going to have more than two characters for each entry, which is the version I would have accepted as an answer. The following version has its entries truncated to their first and last characters, to make things a tiny bit more confusing...

Lines so far:

T U E D I E
* A S A L X
1 I 6 C T H
H 2 * 4 3 5
H * ' * * *

Today's line:

PE GD PK GN RD BE

The usefulness of this line depends on knowledge you may not have. However, as I said earlier, the line is not necessary for finding the answer...

If nobody gets the answer by the end of Sunday I'll post all remaining lines on Monday - unless anyone objects.

ok, so having now got the

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

bit of the puzzle, what does that last line have to do with it?

Reason notwithstanding, this thread continues unabated...

Whether or not there actually is a Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy part of the puzzle remains to be seen. After all, who brought the Hitch-Hiker's Guide into it in the first place?

The full version of "PE GD PK GN RD BE" is:

PURPLE GOLD PINK GREEN RED BLUE

quote:

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Originally posted by JeremyD:
After all, who brought the Hitch-Hiker's Guide into it in the first place?

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Ahem.

Regards

Mike

On the Yellow Brick Road and Happy

On second thoughts it would be silly to give the remaining lines now. Since the answer is obviously related to the Hitch Hiker's Guide - well spotted, Mike - it only seems fitting that the puzzle should now change.

The original unstated question was "What sequence of six letters and/or numbers represent whatever is represented by given lines?" I would have accepted any reasonable answer - the ones I thought of were HHGTTG, FORTY2 and even FOURT2.

We have these lines so far:

T U E D I E
* A S A L X
1 I 6 C T H
H 2 * 4 3 5
H * ' * * *

with the extra line:

PURPLE GOLD PINK GREEN RED BLUE

The latter should be a useful clue for someone.
The question now is to

1) Find the three missing lines.
2) Put all eight of the six-character lines in the "correct" order.
3) Explain what is "wrong" with the extra line.

i honestly thought mike was joking with his reference to the hitch hikers guide to the galaxy?!

having not seen that programme does this mean the "puzzle" will be impossible for me to solve and that ive been wasting my time?

is it a puzzle you can work out the answer from the question? or have you got to alredy know the answer to be successfull?

Chris

You don't need to know anything about the programme to solve the puzzle. But if you have never seen the radio series then you certainly don't have the knowledge needed to use the information given by the colours line. However, if you get the answer to 1 and 2 you should be able to make an educated guess about 3.

Some clues:

1) In case I haven't already mentioned it, one of the asterisks represents a hyphen.
2) Of the remaining asterisks, those that don't represent spaces represent one particular symbol that you will certainly know but which is not available on any computer keyboard.
3) Ask yourself questions about the numbers in the lines...

quote:

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3) Ask yourself questions about the numbers in the lines...

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? the numbers give the correct columns for the letters which is how you manage to spell 'hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy' from the given letters. Is there meant to be another word in there?
Not having 'seen' then radio show means the colours are meaningless to me as I said previously - unless the question is along the lines of "what colour is"?

Given that we no longer have any native earth men and a rudimentary scrabble set as used by Arthur Dent and the fact that we are all descendants of the Galgafrinchans (sp?) anyway it would be difficult for any of us to guess the answer to the question. Indeed we would need to spend a great deal of time to find what the question itself actually is. This is of course impossible.

This explains quite a lot about the Forum, as it is populated by the descendants of hair dressers, management consultants and telephone sanitising operatives and by small, green, furry aliens from the second moon of the third planet from the galaxy of Alpha Centauri who occasionally post pointless questions about 'hi-fi' which only serve to confuse the aforementioned inhabitants of the Forum. These poor unfortunates then spend the next few earth weeks discussing the minutiae of stands and mains spurs as if these were the most important topics for discussion.

This in turn allows the white mice to conduct the real experiment for which Earth 2 has been constructed, namely to find reason why anyone wanted to know the ultimate question to Life the Universe and everything in the first place...

quote:

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Originally posted by John Sheridan:
Not having 'seen' then radio show means the colours are meaningless to me as I said previously...

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Once you get the answer to (1) and (2) you are almost certain to be able to explain what is "wrong" with the colour line. You don't need to have 'seen' the radio show.

During the ten days of posts that got deleted in The Great Forum Mishap of 2004, it was established that:

1) The answer has something to do with the cassette version of the original radio series.
2) The colours correspond to the six cassettes, and their "correct" order is: PURPLE GOLD PINK GREEN RED BLUE.

I put "correct" in inverted commas because the puzzle doesn't involve their being in the correct order - it involves their being in the order that I gave them in...

It can now be revealed that the six asterisks that don't represent spaces, a dash or an apostrophe represent the Dolby symbol.

Someone really should get the missing lines now. In fact, for all I know, they already have...

The answer will be provided later today (Saturday).

Jeremy,

I gave a full, clever and correct answer on Thursday. It's a shame it was deleted.

Congratulations, count.d!

Oh, count.d, you don't know how lucky you are! You - yes you, count.d - have been selected from millions of entrants around the world to be the WINNER of our GRAND PRIZE AWARD: an ALL EXPENSES* PAID package holiday on the Frogstar, including a tour of the new premises of Megadodo Publications - to be conducted personally** by none other than Zaphod Beeblebrox himself (or, failing that, someone who looks vaguely like him).

Upon your arrival at the Frogstar a police escort will conduct you hastily to the BEST HOTEL on the planet, where you will be assigned a suite with panaoramic views of... Well, with views***, anyway.

Each day, you will receive ONE BILLION DOLLARS SPENDING MONEY (payable in Triganic Ningi), which should be enough for as many as two surprisingly nutritious meals a day or, perhaps a wiser choice, one Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster.

After TWO WONDERFUL WEEKS of sun, sand and suffering you will return to Earth on the LUXURY CRUISELINER Ain't This a Blast?, the pride of the Vogon fleet. Aboard the ship you will find a range of IN-FLIGHT ENTERTAINMENTS wide enough to suit, well, almost nobody.

Finally, as an ADDED BONUS, the ship will arrive twenty five years before departure, giving you plenty of time to readjust to life on Earth, should you attempt to do so.

Remember YOU HAVE ALREADY WON. To claim your prize, simply attach your I'M A BIG WINNER AND I KNOW IT stamp to your I'M A BIG WINNER AND I KNOW IT coupon and mail it in the I'M A BIG WINNER AND I KNOW IT envelope that is marked "PROBABLY", to arrive no later than first post on 4th March 2004.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS.

*Not including the outbound journey, which must be sourced and paid for by the contest winner.

**We prefer him to conduct them impersonally but, hey, Zaphod's just this guy, you know?

*** If your suite has views that you particularly disagree with then you can, for a small fee, be moved to another one.

[This message was edited by JeremyD on Sat 13 March 2004 at 12:01.]

The lines we have so far are:

T U E D I E
* A S A L X
1 I 6 C T H
H 2 * 4 3 5
H * ' * * *

[plus the colour line]

The missing lines are:

G * Y * * *
* I * E K R
G O * T * H

So that's it... Hmmm...

...Unless someone would like to try to put the eight lines here in the correct order?

...And here's the ultimate answer to ..er this puzzle:

Yes, well, I had hoped the thread would go rather better than it did. I must admit I'm surprised that nobody got the lines in the right order [apart from count.d, of course] but perhaps by then almost everyone was too bored with the thread to bother.

I'll try again, someday, if I can think of a suitable puzzle.

Jeremy, I was joking when I said I had the answer, but I would still like to claim the prize.

I confess I haven't read every single post in this thread so I apologise if I've missed something significant.
I'm confused. What exactly is this picture? What does it mean?

count.d, on many planets to claim to have the answer is, in essence, no different from actually having the answer.

Take, for example, the planet Dimpolia in the Biroid system - a planet that consists entirely of lost golf balls. Centuries ago, after a successful night's drinking*, a rather passe philosopher was inspired to devise a complete theory of the origin, nature and purpose of Dimpolia. The theory involved multi-dimensional physics and epic battles between huge, two-legged gods. The golf balls themselves, he claimed, were the eggs of ancient space dragons, and it was the mission of the Dimpolian people to care for the eggs until they hatched, thereby ushering in the Nineteenth Age of Enlightenment.

As soon as the philosopher announced his amazing discovery, almost all the people of Dimpolia took it without question to be true, for that was their tradition. Over the next few centuries, the Dimpolians developed the theory an arcane and sophisticated philosophy upon which their entire culture came to be based. A few dissident archaeologists thought the whole idea was a load of dragon's eggs but, naturally, they were ignored.

No aspect of life was unaffected. Mathematics, for example, went into terminal decline after it was forbidden to utter, write or even allude to the number "four". To be fair, this seemed entirely reasonable, as anyone who uttered the word "four" risked incurring the wrath of Rowiest God who, it was said, would in his wrath smite the planet with his iron hammer, sending it into a smaller, darker and altogether less desirable dimension.

Although mathematics survived for a few decades under a "don't ask, don't say" policy, it was inevitable that a generation of mathematicians would arrive who couldn't say because they really didn't know. As far as they were concerned adding three to one, like division by zero, was simply was not allowed by the axioms of Dimpolian mathematics.

More than once, arithmetical difficulties caused terrible confusion - if not mortal danger - for tourist unaware of the intricacies of Dimpolian culture:

Tourist: I'd like three of those tentacle-crafted figures of Rowiest God, please.

Shop Assistant: Certainly sir. That'll be nine billion and six please.

Tourist: Wait - make that one more.

Shop Assistant: I beg your pardon, sir?

Tourist: I'd like one more, Rowiest God please.

Shop Assistant: I think you'll probably find you want two more.

Tourist: No, thank you, just one more will suffice.

Shop Assistant: Very drole, sir, very drole.

Tourist: I wasn't trying to be funny...

Shop Assistant: This is a respectable establishment, sir, and there are other customers about. If you'd watch the language, sir, I'll be delighted to sell you three or five Rowiest Gods, whichever you wish sir.

Tourist: I don't want three. I don't want five. I want the number in between three and five. What is your problem? Is it a concept you have difficulty understanding? For heaven's sake I just want FOUUUUUUUUR!

Shop Assistant: HEEEEEEELP POLIIIIIIIIIICE!

But it was too late for the Police, for Rowiest God took his mighty iron hammer and, with a terrifying cry of "FOUUUUUUR", zapped Dimpolia straight into a black hole.

Luckily, Earth is another such planet, so of course you may still claim the prize, count.d.


* successful inasmuch as he remembered absolutely nothing of the past forty eight hours. [Hmmm... Did I acccidentally steal this one from HHGTG or is it my own?]

[This message was edited by JeremyD on Wed 17 March 2004 at 12:46.]