Clue E
A mean or proportional, in a way, between A*C*(B+C) and (2*A-1)*((((B/(A-2))+1)^2)+C-1) (using BASIC nomenclature), of the function f(x) = x3+2, if
A = Number of ex-Presidents still living at start of term of the one shown on a U.S. stamp issued on the [JFYLJMLBALETP] of the person on the stamp with a [LOLCTLE KU "XFEAB LJ NKKY"] on the same page as the [JMYLJMLXMLLSI] stamp seen as Stamp-X, in the stamp collection website at http://album.dweeb.org/
B = Total number of counties in: the antepenultimate U.S. state in a list in ascending order of area, the state just preceding it in that list, and every state adjacent to the smaller of the two
C = the string [C IS IN X* Y*] modified as follows:
1. Follow steps below to find X* and Y*, and substitute them into the string.
2. Remove all spaces, and also one of the double letters, leaving 25 letters.
3. Move the middle three letters in a block and insert between the two letters with the largest [RZLSMX] frequency, where they are adjacent.
4. Do a Shuffle, per Operation Obfuscation procedures, in Capital Craziness.
X* is a string of letters, not a word. First find these two 5-letter words:
(1) [ZYNAE RSYGNANS VNSRMLQYQ]
(2) [JANXFJ JTKPB PZFJZ JLO GA YNLIAB]
Write the two answers side by side, in the order given, then below write 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0, with each digit under one letter, to make a key.
Checkpoints: (1) All 10 letters are different. (2) Alphabetize letters, and of the four corresponding numbers comprising the first digit (under A) through 1 3 7 or 9, only one is prime, while the other three each factor only one way: a prime less than 50 times a prime more than 100.
Next, find the two 5-digit ZIP codes for:
1. Town with same first letter as J, directly north (in the next adjacent county) of the eastern border of the county (in a state admitted to the Union less than [INTXI] days before a new President took office) containing a town with the same name as a county mentioned in clue H
2. In the birthplace of the youngest person in Pic01-13, an address whose number is the product of all digits in the ZIP code of M that do not occupy the same or an adjacent position in the ZIP codes of either G or J, on a street with the same name as the tiny town 2 or 3 km north of the westernmost point of [RNNNRZFTO]
Per the key developed above, write the corresponding letter above each digit of the product of the two ZIP codes. The resulting string of letters is X*.
Y* is the middle 2 or 3 words (depending on parity), in order, of the description in a [RMEEFX NKC] entry at one of the five results of a Custom Search on the word fragment [[**]] at http://www.[WMEWKLTA].com, dated the day two people shared a birthday, when one, the host of a TV talk show, was twice the age of the other, who had been a guest on that show when it aired on the birthday of two people in Pic01-13, again when one (possibly posthumously) was twice the age of the other! Another show guest that day was the person who replaced the person whose surname is an anagram of [RVM DEYQMS], but only after [USMLGZ] and [MLBNFRV] have replaced each other. ** is the number, in Roman Numerals, of the highway between the offices of Greg Bartlett and Blake Dorning, who have the same occupation.
Comments
Is there a typo in part A of this clue? Or am I misreading something? As far as can tell, the "person on the stamp with a [LOLCTLE KU "XFEAB LJ NKKY"]" hasn't had a "[JFYLJMLBALETP]."
Posted by: Susy | Jul 7, 2006 10:43:27 AM
No typos here. It's as intended.
Posted by: Bob Lodge | Jul 7, 2006 11:53:36 AM
I was just thinking about what you are, Susy...I haven't gotten past that part yet either, but something may come to me later.
Posted by: Mike | Jul 7, 2006 12:11:30 PM
Got past the part I had a question on...did you figure it out yet, Susy, as well? If not, just as a sidenote, don't overthink the meaning of "[JFYLJMLBALETP]."
Also, wanted to ask for clarification on if the Custom Search returns exactly five results because I got more than five on what I think ultimately leads to Y*. Not that I couldn't have slipped along the way...I was just wondering; thanks.
Posted by: Mike | Jul 9, 2006 5:30:57 PM
Yeah, I got it, Mike. I, too, loosened my translation of "[JFYLJMLBALETP]" and that part of the clue finally made sense.
When I did the custom search, one of the possible [[**]] solutions gave me exactly five results. Did you perhaps forget about the DOUBLE brackets?
Now if I could just get what he's after for Clue G...
Posted by: Susy | Jul 9, 2006 6:33:12 PM
Ahhhh, OK. I was double bracketing, but I noticed I carelessly had the wrong thing for [[**]]. At least that's resolved...thanks for the confirmation, Susy.
(And you and me both on Clue G...haha).
Posted by: Mike | Jul 9, 2006 8:57:51 PM
If it's supposed to be ambiguous it's cool, but I'm a little confused about the initial instructions to this clue. After calculating the values of the two numbers, are we supposed to calculate "a mean or proportional," and THEN plug it into the function? Or is it the other way around?
Posted by: David | Jul 9, 2006 9:27:13 PM
Yes, I am confused here too. I have the two found numbers, but I am confused as to how to interpret them with regards to the function.
Posted by: Stephen | Jul 9, 2006 10:18:25 PM
This is obviously the 800-lb gorilla of the 13 clues.
It was intended to be one of the later ones solved.
If you are doing it too early, part of it may remain unclear until you solve others and come back to it.
Posted by: Bob Lodge | Jul 9, 2006 11:31:58 PM
Never mind.
Eureka.
Posted by: david | Jul 9, 2006 11:55:14 PM
A-ha! Brilliant, Bob!
Posted by: Stephen | Jul 10, 2006 1:33:47 PM
Yeah, but if we get rid of the giant gorilla first, then it's just a bunch of little monkeys we have to deal with!
An interesting chance to "reverse engineer" came up during this clue (which I still haven't completely solved)...I'll see if it helps elsewhere.
Posted by: Mike | Jul 10, 2006 4:39:07 PM
Hi Bob,
Just a clarification...
By "U.S. state in a list in ascending order of area" do you mean "total area (water & land)" or just "land area"?...
Thanks
Posted by: Jim from Minnesota | Jul 12, 2006 11:53:00 PM
It doesn't matter.
Posted by: Bob Lodge | Jul 13, 2006 12:44:52 AM
"Mean or proportional"? Those are two very different things, mathematically speaking. Care to clarify?
Posted by: Susy | Jul 15, 2006 8:27:36 PM
Kind of a functional mean, loosely defined and hard to explain without divulging too much. Actually it isn't that important, and some may solve this without ever fully understanding what is meant, as it is really more of a check than a solving path. At any rate, it does not apply at all before the BASIC expressions have been properly interpreted.
Posted by: Bob Lodge | Jul 16, 2006 2:27:27 AM
After devoting many, many, many, many hours finding the two numbers between which we are to find the mean or proportional, those of us who are functionally computer illiterate (sometimes it takes days just to check my email), may find that we don't know BASIC from Kaswahili. Is there some site somewhere that explains what the heck BASIC nomenclature is? I thought f(x)=x^3+2 was a camera shutter speed. (So close and yet so far...)
Posted by: DonV | Jul 19, 2006 1:58:34 AM
In the good old BASIC language it was often necessary to write algebraic expressions easily, in a straight typewritten line, without use of complex fractions like
x + 3
-----
y - 2
written in that form. Use of parentheses allows it to be written thus:
(x + 3) / (y - 2)
It's the same order of operations as algebra. The asterisk (*) means multiply, and is required, thus 2A must be written 2*A. The caret (^) means exponentiation, thus 5^2 means 5 squared.
Yes, the function expression does look like f stop in photography. f(x) is an algebraic symbol, read ''function of x'' It merely defines a function, for example, if
f(x) = 2*x-7, then
f(5) = 3, and
f(1) = -5
to choose a couple of random examples. A mean or proportional is usually expressed ''A is to B as B is to C'', and B is the mean between A and C. If a function is employed:
f(A) = B
f(B) = C
then B is a kind of functional mean.
However, if this is all too confusing, paths exist to see your way to the solution without worring about the function. When it is all done, the function business is more of a checkpoint than part of the solution path, so don't get too hung up on it.
This part of the clue was a challenge to write (there were many rough drafts) and I wanted to convey a meaning without requiring that you know advanced algebra. Here's the biggest hint: It is intended to be one of the last clues solved, perhaps before only A and C (A references C, and C references everything else except A), so you may need to simply set it aside until most others are done.
I hope this added more enlightenment than confusion (but I'm not so sure. :-)
Posted by: Bob Lodge | Jul 19, 2006 12:36:34 PM
One other clarification--I used the word mean more in the sense of a Geometric mean than an arithmetic mean. If you were thinking the latter that may have caused some unintended confusion.
Posted by: Bob Lodge | Jul 19, 2006 2:05:43 PM
Well, I at least had something for this clue--I may want to back and double-check my work, just in case!
Posted by: Mike | Jul 19, 2006 3:59:18 PM
Answer, continued -- The next step of E is to solve A = Number of ex-Presidents still living at start of term of the one shown on a U.S. stamp issued on the [QUINQUAGENARY] of the person on the stamp with a [ANAGRAM OF "TIMED AC LOOP"] on the same page as the [QUINCENTENARY] stamp seen in Stamp X, in the stamp collection website at http://album.dweeb.org/
Extended chains of phrases like this are usually best solved by working backwards through the sentence. The person on Stamp X is Copernicus, born in 1473, and the stamp was issued on April 23, 1973. Looking for a stamp on the same page (second 1973 page) depicting something that is an [ANAGRAM OF "TIMED AC LOOP"] (whatever that means) turns out to be CAPITOL DOME (which is, ironically, in DC!) It is seen on the Lyndon Johnson stamp at the lower right corner.
In turn, LBJ's 50th birthday was on August 27, 1958. Looking now in the 1958 pages (actually 1957 Page 2) of the Album reveals one stamp issued on that date, for the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Thus the president sought here is Lincoln, at whose inauguration no less than 5 ex-presidents still lived, a record that was unequalled until Clinton took office in 1993. So, A = 5.
For C, the first task is to separately find X* and Y*, and to find X*, a key must be developed and two ZIP codes, beyond the primary 13 of Part [I], must be found. To find the key, first find two 5-letter words:
(1) [VIOLA TRICOLOR HORTENSIS]
(2) [CELTIC CROWD WHICH CAN BE PLAYED]
Viola tricolor hortensis is the scientific name for a PANSY. A Celtic crowd is a musical instrument called a CRWTH, an interesting word containing no traditional vowels. (Some Celtic roots use W as we would a double O.)
Write the two answers, in the order given, then below write 1234567890, with each digit under one letter, to make a key. The key (you may have to line them up) then becomes:
P A N S Y C R W T H
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0
which the Checkpoint arranges into
A C H N P R S T W Y
2 6 0 3 1 7 4 9 8 5
The potential primes confirm the Checkpoint, factoring as follows:
2603 = 19 x 137 26031 = 3 x 8677 260317 = PRIME 26031749 = 47 x 553867
Next time I'll do the two ZIP codes and finish X*. Once again, working backwards through each clue is the quickest way to see the solution.
Posted by: Bob Lodge | Oct 14, 2006 12:51:50 AM
Solution of X* continued --
1. Town with same first letter as J, directly north (in the next adjacent county) of the eastern border of the county (in a state admitted to the Union less than [FORTY] days before a new President took office) containing a town with the same name as the first county mentioned in clue H
The county in clue H is Vermillion. States entering the union just before a new President are MI, 37 days before Van Buren, KS, 33 days before Lincoln, and FL, the day before Polk took office. The only one with a Vermillion is KS. It is in Marshall County, at the northern border of the state, so the next county to the north, above its eastern boundary, is Pawnee County in NE! The town that lines up and begins with S (same as J = Shady Side) is Steinauer, ZIP 68441.
2. In the birthplace of the youngest person in Pic01-13, an address whose number is the product of all digits in the ZIP code of M that do not occupy the same or an adjacent position in the ZIP codes of either G or J, on a street with the same name as the town 2 or 3 km north of the westernmost point of [SOLOTHURN].
The youngest of the 14 celebrities in the 13 pictures is Jimmy Fallon, born 1974 in Brooklyn NY. ZIP codes of M, G, and J are 71268, 87731, and 20764, and digits of the first that don't also appear in the same or an adjacent position in either of the others are 1, 2, and 8. Their product is the number in the address, 16.
SOLOTHURN is a Swiss canton, whose westernmost point juts into the Bern Canton, just below a small place named COURT. A very detailed atlas may be necessary to find it. (It is in the prize atlas!) So, the complete address is 16 Court St, Brooklyn NY. This is probably a large building and is the only address using its own ZIP code, 11241.
Above each digit of the product of the two ZIP codes, write the corresponding letter from the key developed above. The resulting string of letters is X*.
The product 68441 x 11241 = 769345281. Using the key gives X* = RCTNSYAWP.
Next we will attack Y*, once again working backwards through the clue, starting with Bartlett and Dorning.
Posted by: Bob Lodge | Oct 15, 2006 4:08:01 PM
I see I messed up the HTML on both previous posts. Sorry about that. They weren't supposed to stay in italics all the way through. Next time I'll look more carefully at the preview.
Posted by: Bob Lodge | Oct 15, 2006 9:18:56 PM
I apparently missed a way back in July. Hope this fixed it.
Posted by: Bob Lodge | Oct 16, 2006 4:23:45 AM
16 Court St. is a 38 story building with about a quarter million square feet of office space. It houses several of the administrative agencies for the borough of Brooklyn, and more lawyers' offices than you can shake a tort at.
(I hadn't quite solved all the clues I needed to solve for the street number when I tackled this gorilla, so I looked up info on several different possible addresses on Court St. 16 seemed like the obvious choice and fortunately for me was the right one.)
Posted by: Susy | Oct 16, 2006 8:51:18 PM
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