Puzzle Fantastica 3 (Fourth Clue) : The World's Fair

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Puzzle Fantastica 3 (Fourth Clue)

Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
Posted on: November 22, 2007 11:19 AM, by David Ng

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Comments

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

Electromagnetic force, wave frequencies, first wireless communications to and among ships, ***short***wave radio.

Posted by: Joe in LA | November 22, 2007 2:20 PM

Gingham shorts? Wild.

Posted by: Timon | November 22, 2007 2:43 PM

Arn't these "Plus Fours" such as the late Payne Stewart wore at golf tournaments?

There's another number to go along with "Hawaii-Five-oh", . HMS Bellerophon in the Royal Navy of its day was a "third rater", not a comment on its ability to fight but referring to the number of its guns. These numbered 74, the smallest quantity for a ship deemed capable of taking its place in the line-of-battle for fleet-to-fleet action.

So is numbers the key?

Posted by: Toby Joyce | November 25, 2007 2:28 PM

Ok, here's my idea: there is no correct answer. The original 3 clues were chosen without a unifying theme. When people started coming up with ideas that seemed to be plausible they threw in a 4th clue that doesn't fit with any of the current guesses.

The whole thing is a game to see what kind of connections people are able to make among objects with no intended connections.

Posted by: Matthew | November 26, 2007 1:07 PM

I've been quiet about PF#3, waiting to jump in with my own insights -- and that is because I, as the blog co-author, actually don't know the answer. This one's all Dave. He developed the clues, he had the answer, he's doing all the related postings.

I can say in response to Matthew, though, that there *is* a correct answer. I know that much.

If readers want, I could try to pitch in with my own sense of how these things work and ways to think about solving it. But I honestly don't know the answer and may lead us as astray as anyone else.

Oh, I wish it was a jackal. RPM's usually gotta a good sense for this stuff.

Posted by: BRC | November 26, 2007 2:23 PM

For what it's worth, this picture is the first result from a google image search on 'checker shorts'.

BRC, go ahead and lead us astray, I'm interested in what you have to say. This 4th clue makes all my previous guesses look pretty silly. Do you know if there will be more clues forthcoming?

Posted by: Matthew | November 27, 2007 1:34 PM

How about hairstyles?

Curls = Curly
Wave = Wavy
Shorts = Short

Bellerophon = ...uh... a ponytail? At least, reading the mythology, it's a pony tale

Posted by: AlanM | November 30, 2007 4:10 AM

But don't forget the structure of the answers to prior PFs: it wasn't that they all had one thing in common. It was, rather, a matter of second-order connections. If you made one connective move from the given clue to "something else"--as in PF #2, from the Queen's reflection in the rearview mirror to Queen the Band--then made one connective move from a different clue to "something else"--as in PF#2 again, from the set of numbers meant to indicate # of moons on each planet -- then eventually the answer was formed by connecting at the second level (so Queen the band led to Freddy Mercury while the # of moons led to the last planet in the sequence, Mercury). The puzzle became a matter of connecting the dots between Queen the band and the planet closest to the sun -- where mercury was the common link, as both Alan M and Joe in LA surmised.

That is, the answer was not formed by one degree of similar association. It was, in both PF#1 and PF#2, formed by a second-level degree of association.

Posted by: BRC | November 30, 2007 8:17 AM

So does that mean that you either know the answer, or are sure that the answer to PF#3 is derived from the same methods as the previous PFs?

Well then, I guess the answer isn't "jockey," which was another thought I had.

Disk Jockey
Jockey Shorts
Bellerophon rode a horse

Posted by: AlanM | November 30, 2007 10:31 AM

I think we could make a bit of progress if we got a grasp of what clue 1 represented. There's been guesses from tidal waves to Jupiter's moons. Anyone seen it in a web search?

Posted by: Toby | December 1, 2007 1:39 PM

How about "inevitable capture" as an answer?

Clue 1 appears to show four objects inevitably captured by a singularity
Clue 2 In Hawaii Five-O, Chinese agent Wo Fat always escapes until the last episode, when he is finally captured
Clue 3 The Bellerophon (inevitably?) captured Napoleon
Clue 4 The checker shorts refer to checkmate, the state of inevitable capture of the King in chess.

Posted by: DaveR | December 11, 2007 2:49 PM

You know, a hint would make a nice Christmas present...

Posted by: Matthew | December 21, 2007 11:33 AM

Eisenhower,
Kennedy,
Johnson, and
Nixon.

Posted by: Joe in LA | December 24, 2007 12:50 AM

Electrons, protons, neutrons, etc.

Posted by: Joe in LA | January 1, 2008 10:19 PM

1. Rotate (What the objects are doing around the center)
2. Break (What the wave is doing)
3. Fall (what Bellerophon did, from Mount Olympus)
4. Twist (What Chubby Checker does)

Posted by: Joe in LA | January 6, 2008 10:10 PM

1. The path of a popping popcorn kernel used to make CrackerJACKs.

2. As previously established, Hawaii Five-0 starred JACK Lord.

3. The flag is a form of Union JACK.

4. Now while I have not yet figured out the commonality of the fourth clue, it is obvious that because how it was revealed that it does not fit in exactly with the first three. I would therefore place it in a way that does not have all four clues in a line. It would then create an "L" shape.

Therefore, the answer absolutely must be: "JACK-L."

RPM is right!

Posted by: Joe in LA | January 10, 2008 10:45 PM

Spiral > Coil
Surf > Wave
Sail > Arc
Checkerboard > Alternating

=
Nikola Tesla

Posted by: Joe in LA | January 22, 2008 2:43 AM

Another attempt at Ben's methodology:

Electrons of Oxygen > Air
Hawaii, born of > Fire
Bellerophon, fell back to > Earth
Shorts, for wearing in > Water

Classical Elements

Posted by: Joe in LA | January 29, 2008 1:47 AM

Maybe the first clue represents the digits 1,3,4, and 6, in some order. The four terminal dots would appear at those numbers, if the diagram was viewed as the face of a clock.

Posted by: AlanM | January 30, 2008 3:10 PM

Have you forgotten about your Puzzle Fantastica fans? We would love another clue...

Posted by: Joe in LA | March 14, 2008 12:26 AM

Yeah Dave -- where are they? I was wondering the same thing as Joe.

Posted by: BRC | March 14, 2008 8:00 AM

Apologies for the lateness (just got through a whole pile of stuff). I promise something will be up in the next two weeks...

Posted by: David Ng | March 14, 2008 3:52 PM

Works for me!

OK, in the meantime, one more stab using some of the concepts and methods above. If not Nikola Tesla, could it be Guglielmo Marconi?

Posted by: Joe in LA | March 14, 2008 10:20 PM