The World's Fair

longitude. so there.

Posted by: markus | April 1, 2008 8:58 PM

N S
A A
C L
L T

Posted by: Joe in LA | April 2, 2008 3:05 AM

Loin, side, legs, hams, ribs, feet?

Ai yi yi! What does a nice Jewish boy from Los Angeles know from pork products?!?!?

Posted by: Joe in LA | April 2, 2008 3:18 AM

spam

shorts
painting
asteroid
m...?

Posted by: Matthew | April 2, 2008 9:26 AM

When I saw "pork" products, the first thing I thought of was "bacon" - as in Kevin Bacon degrees of separation. That could work, especially the way the picture is laid out.

Maybe each clue leads to another clue (with the picture as a guide). These new clues then maybe are more obvious at leading to the solution.

This is tough.

Posted by: diane | April 2, 2008 10:07 AM

Of course!

It must be...

S

P

A

M

!

Posted by: Joe in LA | April 3, 2008 10:40 PM

O.K. so let's see if we can first solve the hand drawn bits.

1. looks like a star with an eye or a sideways "A." Something to do with space, something to do with orientation?

2. Rectangle within a rectangle: a frame, a television, meaning that something is "inside something" like a container or something?

3. A vertical line? The number 1, the letter I, up/down, a wall?

4. A circle with a line. This one comes across as a globe, the earth, something to do with planets, geography, maps?

Posted by: jenjen | April 4, 2008 5:25 PM

I have been thinking along those same lines, but to no avail.

The first one. An asterisk. A star. The letter A. An "upside down letter A" quantifier from propositional logic. All star? Could the A be a sideways D? Could it be an eye looking to the left. Is the asterisk meant to meant be a wildcard symbol or a footnote symbol?

So, an important issue is what is up, down, left and right in this puzzle? For example in the third part of Clue 5, is it an I or a 1, or could it be a minus sign or dash?

Or is it one of rebus puzzles where there is a word and symbol equation. You know :) - s = mile.

And, was the puzzle solveable without Clue 5? If so, these may be an overlay as opposed to part of the formula necessary to solve.

If one leads to the other, how can the order not matter. So, in Clue 5: First a star, then a board. That leads to starboard, etc...

Just continuing the conversation.

Posted by: Joe in LA | April 5, 2008 4:25 AM

Oh, there's the Keck observatory on Hawaii. They were the first (hence the digit 1) to find an earth-like planet outside our solar system.

Posted by: AlanM | April 5, 2008 1:27 PM

The answer is 51 Pegasi b, the first planet discovered outside our own solar system. Here is my reasoning; I tried to credit the first person who made the interpretation I used. The clues are referred to in the order they first appeared (which is different than the final image of clue #5).

The final clue included the admonition to remember that "It's all about the pork products...." So, I looked for connections to Kevin Bacon movies or stars linked to him, but I eventually concluded that the reference simply meant that all the clues were connected to the same "star." (See also the hint following clue #3).

Clue 1 shows a collection of epicycles (Matthew), a star, and an eye. Ptolemy, of course, is most noted for his epicycle model of planetary motion, based on his observations of their motion in relation to the stars beyond. Ptolemy described the motion of planets and offered details on 48 constellations in his treatise on astronomy, Almagest. The fist extrasolar planet "observed" in 1995 was found in the constellation Pegasus�one of the constellations described by Ptolemy. The star 51 Pegasi, around which the planet orbits, can be seen with the naked eye and was likely observed by Ptolemy (I don't know, however, if Almagest refers directly to the star).

Clue 2 is the album cover for the Hawaii 5-0 soundtrack, followed by the number 1. Adding 50 and the 1 together yields the 51 of 51 Pegasi. In addition, the two sides of a record are commonly referred to as the "A side" and the "B side." If I am looking for a planet, it cannot be "A," as that nomenclature is not used in naming planets�hence 51 Pegasi "b." I was a little thrown off here by AlanM's comment about the Keck observatory in Hawaii (sometimes referred to by its location on Mauna Kea. The Keck was not the first to witness 51 Pegasi b; that distinction goes to the Observatoire de Haute-Provence, which is in the southeast of France.

Clue 3, as most everyone quickly recognized has a picture of the ship HMS Bellerophon (Dave S. was the first to note this). 51 Pegasi b was given the nickname Bellerophon (Matthew was the first to connect the ship to this planet with the same name). Interestingly, only a handful of the currently 287 extrasolar planets so far discovered have been given nicknames. Next to the ship is a rectangle within a rectangle (at first I thought this was a mirror, until jenjen noted differently), the planet Bellerophon being "within" the 51 Pegasi system observed by Ptolemy.

Following Clue 3, David gave a hint with this epigraph:
Puzzle Fantastica #1 was too hard
Puzzle Fantastica #2 was too easy
Puzzle Fantastica #3 is ...
and the observation that all the clues pointed to a common answer. Jacqui's clue that this epigraph would end with "just right," and thus was a reference to Goldilocks, led me to thinking about the "Goldilocks Zone," which has to do with extrasolar plants, with our beloved 51 Pegasi being the first discovered. The "Goldilocks Zone" is a nickname for the habitable zone (HZ), or the region of space with favorable conditions for life. This is the region where conditions for life are "just right" (get it? Nudge, nudge; wink, wink). Ironically (as the ellipses suggest), 51 Pegasi b is anything but "just right." At 0.5 Aus, the planet resides with inside the HZ, which for 51 Pegasi has been calculated at between 1.20 and 2.0 Aus. This connects quite nicely to the penultimate clue.

Clue 4 consisted of a pair of shorts and the representation of a planet on its axis. Bellerophon, orbiting 51 Pegasi, is "short" in two ways. First, the planet lies incredibly close to 51 Pegasi (only 7.5 million km or 0.5 AU as noted above), much closer that Mercury is to our Sun. Its estimated temperature is around 1200 Celsius (dang hot�even in Phoenix). Secondly, it has a short orbital period; one orbit (that is, one Bellerophonian year) is 4.2 Earth days. Didier Queloz, who led the team that discovered that planet, at first thought that there must be something wrong with the data since the planet was so close to the star.

BTW: The constellation Pegasus in one of the places the SETI has its ears pointed at

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Bellerophon_(1786)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_(constellation)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/51_Pegasi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/51_Pegasi_b
http://faculty.fullerton.edu/cmcconnell/Planets.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._M._Keck_Observatory
http://www.novacelestia.com/space_art_extrasolar_planets/gas_giants.html#51_pegasi_bellerophon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extrasolar_planet
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11427824/

Posted by: Will | April 7, 2008 2:04 PM

So, onto the second clue. What could the connection be between the ship and a double rectangle?

It could be a frame, thereby an allusion to the gallery this painting is in, or to the painting itself.

Or, might it be a symbol for canvas itself, as in the the canvas used in the sails. This canvas is also known as duck.

Or might it be a movie screen, leading to the film allusions to Bellerophon, particularly Forbidden Planet?

If it is on its side, might the frame be the yellow National Geographic logo?

Posted by: Joe in LA | April 9, 2008 2:49 AM

From my earlier theory, the rectangles could represent that the clue is around the frame of the image, where "Bellerophon" is written.

It seems less likely that it would refer to the Citadel on the left. But it's spooky, since right next to me on the floor sit a Dell computer.

Posted by: AlanM | April 9, 2008 8:00 AM

OK, so now the connection between the original third clue and its new add on.

Hawaii Five-0. Does this clue stand on its own, or does the add-on modify it?

So, is it 501, as in Levis or the IRS designation for nonprofits as 501(c)(3), or is it 50 minus 1 which would make it 49, or 7 squared, or Alaska's place in the state line-up.

Or, is the add-on NOT a one, but a directional line, either horizontal or vertical, depending on how you look at it, an on (vs. 0 for off) symbol.

Or, is it the letter i? Hawaii minus i? Or Venture (the Ventures perform the song) & i = Venturi, as in the Venturi effect?

Posted by: Joe in LA | April 11, 2008 1:15 AM

So, therefore...

> (A star) gyrates.
> A collection of guns.
> Where he did his films and shows (and where Stitch hangs out).
> The moves of a king in both black and white (music).

ELVIS!

Oh, it's all about the pork? He loved those peanut butter, banana, jelly, bacon, etc. sandwiches!

Posted by: Joe in LA | April 11, 2008 2:31 AM

>>> Clue #4 - I'm still working on it.

Well, in Holst's The Planets, Jupiter is the Bringer of Jollity.

Can't think of pants much more jolly than those! :)

Posted by: Joe in LA | April 13, 2008 1:17 AM

Is there any more connection between Bellerophon and any of the planets? Or other gravitational bodies? Putting AlanM's thoughts on Jupiter together with jenjen's notice of the meaning of the second symbols, with Joe's thoughts about that square being a movie screen or something. He says, "leading to the film allusions to Bellerophon." I can't get far on the 3rd and 4th clues, but with those first two, it just seems there must be a connection that can lock in the pattern that the 3rd and 4th would help confirm.

Posted by: BRC | April 28, 2008 2:13 PM

The hand-drawn clues may be something to do with perspective.

The star-gazing eye suggests that we should be looking up.

The two rectangles could represent the rough shape of the boat+deck when viewed either from below or above.

The single line could represent the album itself when viewed from below or above.

And I can't stop seeing the circle+two lines as a stick-person viewed from above, presumably wearing checker shorts.

Almost completely unrelatedly, I also have:

HEAvens = HEAd
HAwaii 50 = HAM
BELLerophon = BELLy
SHOrts = SHOulder

again, possible cuts of pig.

I do also like the idea that the clues have something to do with Bacon's four Idols of knowledge (http://www.sirbacon.org/links/4idols.htm) but it has yet to drop into place...

Posted by: DaveR | April 28, 2008 11:54 PM

I think Will (above) has a pretty strong case: 51 Pegasi b

To the ideas already laid out:
"orbit" and "star visible" from the schematic
"Bellerophon" and "contained within" from the painting
"Short Period Orbit" and "short distance" from Shorts
"b " from an LP a/b side

I add:
"tidally locked"

Posted by: rpsms | May 15, 2008 12:46 PM