Please start making music again, Nick & Fred!
Congratulations to Briac Pilpré, who correctly solved this week’s puzzle and won a $50 gift certificate to ThinkGeek.
Puzzle:
OK. I made it back from Comic-Con weary and only somewhat alive, but entranced with all the glorious things I saw there. But now that I’m chained back to my desk at Puzzle Central, I can’t stop day dreaming about Walking Dead trailers and Mythbuster panels. I was so distracted this week, I couldn’t come up with a puzzle, but I did find a scrap of paper in a drawer with a bunch of numbers on it. What’s the answer?
10.811 24.305 10.811 26.982 10.811 28.086 40.078
1.0079 39.948 54.938 26.982 54.938 9.0122 10.811
1.0079 39.948 12.011 39.948 18.998 10.811 28.086
9.0122
Solution:
You probably thought those numbers looked pretty familiar — and then you realized they were atomic weights. If you then pulled out your wallet-sized periodic table, you could convert the numbers to elements. But what does Boron, Magnesium, Boron, Aluminum, Boron, Silicon, Calcium, Hydrogen, Argon, Manganese mean? Is it some new compound? Actually, if you take the atomic number of each of these elements and convert it to the alphabet (Hydrogen, atomic number 1 = A; Helium, atomic number 2 = B, etc.) you will find that the answer is:
“Elementary, my dear friend.”
In case you didn’t figure out that the numbers were atomic weights, there was a hint – the puzzle title includes some lyrics from the song “Elements” by the wonderfully sublime band, Lemon Jelly. (And the image is the cover art to the CD “Elements” appears on, Lost Horizons.)
Come back Monday for a new puzzle from Dave Giancaspro. I’m curious to see what he’s come up with. The noises coming from his cubicle are absolutely horrifying.
