What we have here is an escalation in the nature of the PF. Phase Two of PF#2 is now upon us. Because PF#2 has been solved.
But which solution is it?
The first Puzzle was a game, a set of clues to see how people think through evidence, and to see which directions thoughts and inclinations lead people. It shouldn't be confused with science, we should note. We're not imitating "science." We're more interested in knowledge production and reasoning and argument and uses of evidence. Science, as I think most of us know it, provides the best way to deal with those things. (But that isn't the same thing as saying the puzzle is science.) Furthermore, PF#1 allowed us to watch how conjecture abounds, propagates, and gets disputed, and, as well, how consensus builds. Now, this only worked to a certain degree with PF#1 because nobody got the answer!
So then we introduced PF#2. And we did so with an easier road planned. And, guess what? Easy it was! Someone guessed the answer already!
But which one is it?
We now push the Puzzle ahead into Phase Two, the phase where a bevy of possibilities presents itself, the phase where we have reduced our menu from infinite to several handfuls. Allow us a review of the process and an issuance of its continuation:
- PF#1 was never solved. A whirlwind it was, but a solution it did not proffer.
- PF#2, to the contrary has been solved. And in record time. We, admittedly, hadn't looked at the page for a while and didn't notice the correct answer's presence until reviewing the pages early this morning. But the answer is there.
- This thus allows us to enter phase two of puzzle solving: the debate about which answer is correct. Let us then follow this procedure:
- We know one of the answers at this post is correct.
- We can tell you that the correct answer was not derived by a consistent use of the clues. It was, as the kids say, a guess. But a correct one.
- The nature of the PF is to play: to play with means for knowledge production, to play with strategies for collecting evidence, to play with forms of reasoning. It is within this spirit that we push on to phase two of PF#2.
If we might repeat ourselves, then, which of these answers (also below) is the correct one?
13 billion mirror tubes...
Nanotech...
Reflections...
36...
360...
Mercury...
Symmetry...
Balance...
The Royal Society...
42...
A jackal...
Empirical...
The Scientific Method...
Laboratory...
Science and religion...
AND WHY?
Jackal.
RPM, you don't get full credit unless you "show your work" by explaining it.
And, if jackal turns out to be wrong (which, I assure you, it will), you'll get a zero on the assignment.
oh, but Free Ride, RPM makes such a strong case. it's got clarity. it's an elegant response. it comes with such confidence! maybe he's intuiting.
Now that I read Ben's commentary up top, I'd have to say either "Mercury" or "Symmetry" is the correct answer. And here I thought I was so clever adding up numbers. 36? Phooey.
Um, "360" and "The Scientific Method" are intended, at least from my view, to be the same answer.
I contend that they are the most direct answers to the question, "How will you go about finding that thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you?" (Plato's Meno, to Socrates)
Unless it is the Jackal, and then all bets are off...
I think Joe's idea makes a good amount of sense, too, except I think it is flawed in one crucial way: It seeks firstly to answer the question posed in Meno, and secondly to answer the actual clues. Plato's question is not necessarily one of the clues, per se (it is not listed as one), but rather could simply be seen as a lead-in to the puzzle, and a general one at that. I felt, at first, that the puzzle called for a simpler answer, which is why I went with a decidedly basic '36'. While the answer is simple in itself, getting there requires cognitive jumps, hypothesizing, testing, retesting, and concluding something from it - i.e.; scientific method. But now, honestly, I'm just not sure...
Damn you, Puzzle Fantastica!
Regarding your review of the process, you forgot to include "????" and "Profit" as critical steps.
Now, I do have to admit, that if it is not the observation/experimental method answer, then the most intriguing, non-supported answer is "reflection."
That word has so many different meanings, many in the science realm -- not only reflection as when you see yourself in the mirror or something is rendered as a mirror image, but also reflection as when you engage in self-reflection or introspection.
It is easy to find reflection of the optical kind in the second and third clue, but the numbers in the first clue's series are not symmetrical. Having said this, there are many, many uses of the term reflection in mathematics (http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/math/pdf/0610/0610938.pdf, for example). Anyone in the math department want to help us out here?
Numbers - Mirror - Instruments
Validating a theory through repeated experimentation? (another way of saying Scientific method)
Curse you and your vague, venn diagrams.
Buggers. It has to be Royal Society. That one had good reasons and a link. It made all the pieces fit together. The other guesses were okay, but they all stuck to two of the three clues and gave up on the third.
Wait!
If it is anything like Puzzle Fantastica's C.L.O.N.E. solution, then perhaps the correct answer is:
1.N.R.3.3.M.S.B.T.4.A.E.T.L.S.!
You know,
13 billion mirror tubes...
Nanotech...
Reflections...
36...
360...
Mercury...
Symmetry...
Balance...
The Royal Society...
42...
A jackal...
Empirical...
The Scientific Method...
Laboratory...
Science and religion...
Doesn't Big Bird sing that? I think I still have that record.
I too am looking for 'D'. There is a letter 'D' missing from the instruments figure, relating to instrument XI. The letters may relate to instructions for using these instruments.I'm also interested in the font used for the numbers clue, as it is somewhat defaced. Could omission/error somehow relate to the scientific method?
That's another Sesame Street thing, right? The letter D? But Sesame Street wasn't an option! And doesn't make sense! Why am I writing this!
OK, symmetry, because... ...esuaceb , yrtemmys ,KO
Not that the answer can't be Royal Society, but why are people so sure that that's the Queen?
Reasons to think that she is not the Queen:
a) She's wearing a scarf instead of one of her queenhats
b) She is smiling
c) She is sitting in the driver's seat of an automobile (assuming the picture was taken in the UK)
Reasons to think that she is the Queen:
1) She looks somewhat like the Queen (though see (a) and (b) above)
Yeah. We pretty much give up.
Benjamin, throw us a bone or something?
To confirm: it is in fact the Queen.
Ah, then that ties in the other answer of Mercury, doesn't it?
Wasn't Mercury (Freddie) the lead singer of Queen (the rock band)?
Oh my goodness!
When the puzzle first came out, I tried 13275663210 as a phone number (1-327-566-3210) on my cell phone that has free long distance dialing to see if it would offer a clue.
But, today when I dialed it with my regular touch tone phone, the melody generated by the touch tones is quite clear... "God Save the Queen!"
Well, either that or "My Country 'Tis of Thee."