The World's Fair : Puzzle Fantastica 3

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David Ng is Director of the Advanced Molecular Biology Laboratory at the University of British Columbia - this is a just a fancier way of calling himself a science teacher.

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PUZZLE FANTASTICA #2

PUZZLE FANTASTICA #1

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Puzzle Fantastica 3 - Clues 1, 2 and 3

Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
Posted on: October 15, 2007 1:30 PM, by David Ng

Puzzle Fantastica #1 was too hard
Puzzle Fantastica #2 was too easy
Puzzle Fantastica #3 is ...

As before, each of these three clues are held together by a common answer. Start the solution in the comments area, and good luck.

Clue 1

Clue 2

Clue 3

Find more posts in: Humanities & Social Science

Comments

It's a jackal.

Posted by: RPM | October 15, 2007 1:37 PM

It's some kind of wave.

Posted by: Ryan S. | October 15, 2007 2:12 PM

Something about being right?

Posted by: Jacqui | October 15, 2007 2:14 PM

Maybe I should explain...in Clue 1, the dot is to the right. In Clue 2, the words are to the right and the wave is coming from the right. In Clue 3, the ship is sailing to the right. And this clue could be a reference to Goldilocks, in which case, Puzzle Fantastica #3 is "just right"...

Posted by: Jacqui | October 15, 2007 2:21 PM

You can click on the ship image (it goes to a much larger image where you can read the inscription)! It reads:

"Bellapheron, 74 guns at Plymouth, 6th August"

Posted by: jenjen | October 15, 2007 2:25 PM

Anyone know what the first image is of? Looks to me to be a plot of tidal waves? Someone with any knowledge out there know if I'm right?

Is the answer high tide?

Posted by: Ryan S. | October 15, 2007 3:24 PM

Today's trifecta: "The Hawaii Moon Declaration."

Posted by: Ryan S. | October 15, 2007 3:54 PM

Could the answer be asteroids?

1. The diagram seems to be of the orbits of the inner planets (and the sun) from a geocentric perspective. The asteroid belt is just beyond the orbit of Mars.

2. Hawaii might have been created by the impact of an asteroid, see this article.

3. Bellerophon, the name of the ship in this painting, is also the name of an asteroid.

Posted by: Matthew | October 15, 2007 3:57 PM

I like the asteroid idea.

Posted by: Jacqui | October 15, 2007 5:29 PM

Mad Idea: 456

The first one could be a four-body problem - a solution to the problem of the orbits of four equal masses around a central mass. Their orbits would be some kind of strange attractor. The French mathematician Poincare was the true originator of Chaos Theory when he tackled this problem.

5 is self-evident for the second one.

6 is the date of the picture if you click on the third image.

Another stab: The warship H.M.S.Bellerophon (affectionately known as "Billy Ruffian" in the Royal Navy) brought Napoleon into exile on St. Helena after his defeat at Waterloo.

St. Helena is a mid-oceanic volcanic island like Hawaii, but how is the first image connected to oceanic islands?
St Helena is is also connected with the great astronomer Edmund Halley who spent some years there observing the southern skies.

So is astronomy the connection? Orbits from the first one, the many telescopes on Hawaii for image 2 and Halley on St. Helena for image 3? Or is it comets?

Posted by: Toby | October 15, 2007 5:37 PM

Not yet... keep 'em coming. (One of these days, RPM, it will be a jackal).

Posted by: David Ng | October 16, 2007 10:36 AM

I thought Clue 1 looked like a hurricane, the dot in the center its eye -- but this is only from associating the shape and pattern of it with the shapes and patterns one sees on television news screens.

Clue 2 features a wave, by definition both made (in part) of and controlled (in part) by the same pattern of force as the hurricane (or the shape of it).

The flag raised on the ship in Clue 3 is the British Red Ensign: the eye of the hurricane of the British navy, the force of empire that whirled its creative destruction in well-rounded pattern from the 1707 Act of Union that created Britain, through the 13 colonies that would get uppity, to Australia, Bermuda, Canada, and all over the world and through time to present proxies -- colonies without mercantilism, wars without declarations -- the Third World over.

The puzzle is force, energy entrapped to become movement in and across oceans, and the undercurrent that powers and shapes it without letting it become predictable to the eyes of hurricanes and men.

Posted by: Katelyn Sack | October 16, 2007 11:37 AM

How about obsolescence or possibly progress?

1. Geocentrism became obsolete with the advent of heliocentrism.

2. Vinyl is generally considered an obsolete technology, in addition it seems that this album was never released on cassette or CD.

3. Sailing ships became obsolete in the 19th century, after the invention of the steam ship.

Probably not correct, but I don't think it's contradicted by any of the clues.

Posted by: Matthew | October 16, 2007 3:51 PM

The first image looks like the output of a Spirograph to me

Posted by: benjymous | October 17, 2007 8:48 AM

.. which gives the letter "O" as the link between the images

Spir*O*graph
Hawaii-Five*O*
Beller*O*phon (click the full image, the name is at the bottom)

Does this mean anything?

Posted by: benjymous | October 17, 2007 8:51 AM

All 3 bring you to ST ...

(1) I think is a computer-generated solution of a five-body problem of 4 equal masses in orbit around a fifth .. which leads to a STrange Atractor.

(2) is the theme music from Hawaii Five-0 whose main character was STeve MacGarrett (played by Jack Lord).

(3) is the warship Bellerphon, carrying Napoleon to ST Helena.

Posted by: Toby | October 17, 2007 4:48 PM

Clue #1: Spiral bound BOOK.
Clue #2: Hawaii Five-0, often concluded with "BOOK 'em Danno!"
Clue #3: Bellerophon, a planet on the TV series Firefly, featuring Shepherd Derrial BOOK.

Posted by: Joe in LA | October 18, 2007 1:02 AM

Agnosticism? Hawaii Five-0 was about besting (Jack) Lord, Bellerophon was skeptical of the existence of the gods, etc.

Posted by: Joe in LA | October 19, 2007 12:30 PM

The Rössler attractor?

Posted by: Joe in LA | October 19, 2007 12:37 PM

This is my third guess ... am I getting warmer?

This guess is the planet Jupiter.

(1) is a computer graphic of the orbit of Jupiter, and four of its largest moons, around around the sun. These four are the ones observed by Galileo - the first heavenly masses discovered in the solar system since antiquity.

(2) Hawaii... The University of Hawaii telescope on Mauna Kea is the world leader in observations of Jupiter's satellites, announcing many new ones some years ago.

http://www.dtm.ciw.edu/sheppard/sheppardjupiter.pdf

(3) Bellerophon... In the star cluster 51 Pegasi B the planet Bellerophon discovered in 1995 is a Jupiter-like gas giant of a type known as a "hot jupiter".

http://www.novacelestia.com/space_art_extrasolar_planets/gas_giants.html

Posted by: Toby | October 19, 2007 1:02 PM

I'm thinking....

Clue 1. Orbital patterns of Neptune's moons.

Clue 2: The sea. God of the sea is Neptune.

Clue 3. Bellerophon is the son of Poseidon (a.k.a. Neptune)

Hence the answer is: Neptune.

Posted by: Dave S. | October 19, 2007 2:57 PM

The Stroganov family?

Posted by: Joe in LA | October 19, 2007 4:30 PM

Hmmmm, if not Jupiter or Neptune...

Oh, my goodness, how about the ***Five-O*** anniversary of journey of the first man-made ***orbiting*** Sputnik satellites and the ***Bellerophonic*** rise and fall of the U.S.S.R. as a superpower?

Posted by: Joe in LA | October 19, 2007 6:47 PM

OK, so drawing from the above, impact of asteroids may have created the Hawaiian islands where there is also volcanic activity, both natural disasters which have been theorized to lead to the mass extinction of dinosaurs at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, while Bellerophon killed the fire-breathing (i.e., volcanic) Chimera from the volcanic Lycian soil and whose sighting was considered a bad omen of shipwrecks and natural disasters such as volcanoes. Is that clear?

Posted by: Joe in LA | October 20, 2007 1:32 AM

Are we close? Is there another clue soon? Or is this it?
Looks like Joe in LA really wants to retain his crown. His answers, I confess, sound reasonable.

Posted by: Baldwin Again | October 23, 2007 8:49 AM

1. Gotta be drawn by a spirograph, but the actual lines are a epitrochoid ... one kind of epitrochoid is an orbit.

2. Hawaii Five-O is so before my time it's just funny, but I'm guessing it had famous people in it.

3. The mythical Bellerophon rode the Pegasus, a constellation.

So... is the answer STARS?

Posted by: Laura | October 23, 2007 10:41 PM

Buckminsterfullerene?

Posted by: Joe in LA | October 27, 2007 1:20 AM

*Neutron activation analysis* that was used on a *curl* of *Napoleon's* hair to determine whether he died by arsenic poisoning?

Posted by: Joe in LA | October 27, 2007 1:28 AM

*Spiral* *tubular* *heat exchangers?*

Posted by: Joe in LA | October 27, 2007 1:37 AM

waves?

Posted by: Laura | October 29, 2007 10:33 AM

OK, I'm now with RPM, it's a jackal.

Posted by: Matthew | October 29, 2007 2:54 PM

Seems to me the best answer is "spiral."

The first clue shows spiral curves (trochoids?)

The second clue is an LP record, which is recorded as a single spiral

The third clue is Bellerophon, which was a sea snail with a spiral shell.

Posted by: AlanM | October 29, 2007 9:44 PM

And by the way, where's my merit badge for being the first person to propose the correct answer to PF #2?

Posted by: AlanM | October 29, 2007 9:53 PM

Support of and/or challenges to positivism and/or determinism as viewed via Ptolemy's epicycles, SchrÃ¶dinger's cat wave functions, and Tiepolo's Allegory of the Power of Eloquence?

Posted by: Joe in LA | October 31, 2007 7:46 PM

I think that the answer is 'two'.

The 'spirograph' curve requires *two* contact points, one held and one moving.

Hawaii Five-O featured *two* detectives, Steve McGarrett and Dan "Danno" Williams.

The ship's name 'Belleropheron' also refers to the greek hero, who was famed for killing the chimera, a fusion of *two* entities.

Puzzle Fantastica #3 is *two* (too).

Posted by: DaveR | November 5, 2007 2:11 PM

The Hawaii Five-0 soundtrack was done by The Ventures.

Both Bellerophon and Venture were starships on Star Trek.

Not sure how the first clue would fit into this theory. However, it is orbital, and looks like some sort of artwork that Lt. Commander Data would have produced. :-)

Posted by: AlanM | November 7, 2007 7:46 AM

Cardiac arrhythmias.

Posted by: Joe in LA | November 16, 2007 1:06 AM

Black hole coalescences.

Posted by: Joe in LA | November 16, 2007 1:11 AM

The "Density-Wave Theory" of how spiral galaxies are formed.

Posted by: Joe in LA | November 16, 2007 1:17 AM

1. Sun [or a planet like Earth] (to orbit around)
2. Moon (to cause tides)
3. Stars (to navigate by)

Posted by: Joe in LA | November 16, 2007 7:14 PM