PUZZLES for PROGRESS #11: Google Form Edition
by Jacob Cohen
September 11, 2020

Puzzle archive: tinyurl.com/puzzlesforprogress/puzzle-archive
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“‘There are tests,’ said Mr. Benedict, ‘and then there are tests.’”
–Trenton Lee Stewart, The Mysterious Benedict Society

To solve this puzzle, you must sift through the information you’ve been given in order to find the information you need. Enjoy!

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1. The Arc of a Scythe trilogy (more commonly known as just the Scythe trilogy), contains three books, Scythe, Thunderhead, and The Toll. The books take place in a future world where all natural death is abolished and all major decisions are made by a supercomputer called the Thunderhead. All decisions, that is, except for death, which is dealt with by people called Scythes. The series overall is extremely well-written, and I highly recommend it. Who is the author?
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2. The bayou is perhaps one of the most interesting biomes in existence. (I’m kidding, I’m kidding.) Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines bayou to mean either “a creek, secondary watercourse, or minor river that is tributary to another body of water” or “any of various usually marshy or sluggish bodies of water.” Etymologically, it originated from the word bayouque in Louisiana French, which itself was borrowed from a Native American language. Which one?
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3. In the puzzle of Combinations, two shorter words must be put together to create one longer word, with an additional letter in the middle. Each of the two shorter words are clued; for instance, “Hair-tidying tool” would suggest COMB, and “Countries” would suggest NATIONS, which together with an I make COMBINATIONS. However, when I first stumbled upon this puzzle, it was not named Combinations. What was it named?
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4. There are many interesting borders in the world. One area of the United Arab Emirates is entirely surrounded by a territory of Oman, which itself is surrounded by the UAE. The longest land border in the world belongs to the United States and Canada. Which countries share the shortest?
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5. Martin Gardner’s The Colossal Book of Wordplay was a huge inspiration for Puzzles for Progress and one of my all-time favorite books. The book mentions what happens if you assign each letter of the alphabet a number using the code A=1, B=2, C=3, etc. and look at which letters are odd or even. What are the odds?
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6. The NATO phonetic alphabet is a way to be extra clear when signaling letters or numbers via radio, to ensure there’s absolutely no confusion. It pairs up each letter with a word to replace that letter when it’s said alone, and is carefully crafted to ensure no ambiguity. For instance, the word for A is alfa (not alpha), B is bravo, C is Charlie, etc. It’s fairly well-known. What is the word for H?
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7. With a volume of 1487 cubic meters, the General Sherman Tree is the largest on Earth. It resides in a national park in the state of California. Which one?
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8. Facial hair in politics has become a rarity. There’s some evidence that a male politician with a beard is perceived as more sexist, or less open to women’s issues, and it’s unclear what the upside would be. So even politicians who would prefer facial hair feel obliged to go without to increase their electability. (Of course, female politicians generally don’t have the option anyway.) But facial hair used to be quite fashionable–who was the last US president to have any?
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9. The New York Times puzzle page is one of the best available, but it certainly isn’t the only one. The Wall Street Journal also has some fantastic puzzles it releases each Saturday. Apart from the crossword and variety word puzzle, it typically contains a news quiz, Killer Sudoku, Suko, and which other puzzle?
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10. 10. Math YouTube channel 3Blue1Brown recently published a video describing the following puzzle, which I’ve paraphrased: You’re a prisoner, and the prison warden shows you a chessboard on which they’ve placed 64 coins (some heads, some tails). The warden explains that they will stash a key in a secret compartment under one of the coins, while you watch. You will then flip one of the coins, at which point you will leave the room. Another prisoner walks in, and must correctly determine where the key is. You have time to strategize–and you must come up with a method to communicate the key’s location of the time. Anyway, what was the video’s title?
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