It’s here! Can you solve my annual Math Science History Holiday Puzzle?!

Gabriellebirchak/ December 22, 2020/ Modern History, Uncategorized

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTS

The hol­i­days are here, and it is time for the annu­al Math Sci­ence His­to­ry hol­i­day puz­zle! This year, you can win a $25 Ama­zon gift card, because if you are like me, you prob­a­bly lost at 2020 BINGO. For links and ref­er­ences to the puz­zle, as well as a tran­script of this pod­cast, please vis­it me at MathScienceHistory.com.

Here we go: Imag­ine that it two hun­dred years in the future and things are much dif­fer­ent. They are so dif­fer­ent that every­body is wis­er and smarter, and the plan­et is heal­ing. A girl can hope, right?

So, the year is 2220. We have advanced so much with tech­nol­o­gy that we now have a Tes­la Time Machine owned by the Unit­ed Nations to trans­port any­one to any place in time. For this puz­zle, the UN has gath­ered four bril­liant sci­en­tists. The UN chose these four sci­en­tists because they come from fam­i­lies in his­to­ry who have earned numer­ous sci­en­tif­ic awards over the last 500 years. 

The first sci­en­tist that the Unit­ed Nations requests before the 2220 Unit­ed Nations Time Trav­el Divi­sion is Sophie Joliot-Curie. If the name does not sound famil­iar, I will remind you. Her great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grand­par­ents were Pierre and Marie Curie. They were the pow­er cou­ple who, along with Hen­ry Bec­quer­el, won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics. After Pierre’s unfor­tu­nate death in 1911, Marie went on to win the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chem­istry for her dis­cov­er­ies of polo­ni­um and radium.

The sec­ond sci­en­tist the UN meets with is Anna Marie Moser. Moser’s great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grand­par­ents were May-Britt and Edvard Moser. May-Britt and Edvard are (or should I say were for the sake of the sto­ry in 2220) sci­en­tists in the twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry who won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Phys­i­ol­o­gy or Med­i­cine and the 2011 Louise-Jean­tet Prize for Med­i­cine. As hus­band and wife, they, along with John O’Keefe, dis­cov­ered the brain’s inter­nal work­ings that help us under­stand ori­en­ta­tion in space. In oth­er words, they found the part of the brain that tells us what is up and what is down, how to maneu­ver to a loca­tion, and remem­ber­ing the direc­tions for get­ting from one place to another.

The third sci­en­tist that the Unit­ed Nations calls upon is Louise Kar­le. She is a ninth-gen­er­a­tion descen­dant of Isabel­la Lugos­ki and Jerome Kar­le. Togeth­er, Isabel­la and Jerome cre­at­ed a direct method for deter­min­ing mol­e­c­u­lar struc­tures. Their work was ground­break­ing, and it has been used to devel­op new com­pounds for med­i­cine and indus­tri­al devel­op­ment. In 1985, Jerome won the Nobel Prize for work that he and Isabel­la did to cre­ate a direct method to ana­lyze dif­frac­tion data. Jerome was not hap­py about the win. He felt as though the Nobel com­mit­tee should have nom­i­nat­ed and award­ed his wife the Nobel Prize as well. In her own right, Isabel­la won sev­er­al awards because she had devel­oped the tech­nique to extract plu­to­ni­um chlo­ride from a mix­ture con­tain­ing plu­to­ni­um oxide. This work gar­nered her the Gar­van-Olin Medal, the Gre­gori Aminoff Prize, the Bow­er Award, the Nation­al Medal of Sci­ence, and the Navy Dis­tin­guished Civil­ian Ser­vice Award, which is the Navy’s high­est form of recog­ni­tion to civil­ian employees.

Final­ly, the fourth sci­en­tist called before the 2220 Unit­ed Nations Time Trav­el divi­sion is Jane Marcet. In 2220, Jane is a four­teenth gen­er­a­tion descen­dant of Jane and Alexan­der Marcet, who mar­ried in 1799. In 1805, Jane Marcet wrote her first book called Con­ver­sa­tions on Nat­ur­al Phi­los­o­phy. It was an expos­i­to­ry book on chem­istry, botany, reli­gion, eco­nom­ics, and phi­los­o­phy. After that, Jane wrote 17 more books, of which sev­en cov­ered top­ics in sci­ence. Alexan­der was a physi­cian, hon­orary pro­fes­sor, and author.

The Unit­ed Nations Time-Trav­el divi­sion informs these four bril­liant sci­en­tists that they have been select­ed for a vital mis­sion. They are to go back to 2019 and erad­i­cate the year 2020. Tem­po­ral sci­en­tists had found a way to avoid any com­pli­ca­tions with the tem­po­ral prime direc­tive if they can­celed the year 2020. Thus, his­to­ry would not be altered if 2020 were removed from the time­line. On the con­trary, through run­ning over 20 bil­lion sce­nar­ios, tem­po­ral sci­en­tists dis­cov­ered that the year 2220 would be even more pros­per­ous and peace­ful for humans and the plan­et. Hey, it is sci­ence fic­tion, and it is for the sake of a puz­zle. So go with me on this.

Final­ly, the puz­zle begins.

The Unit­ed Nations Time Trav­el Divi­sion sends Marcet, Moser, Joliot-Curie, and Kar­le to a Tes­la car deal­er­ship in 2019. Of course, they have to explain to the sci­en­tists what a car deal­er­ship is. They explain that they will send them to a Tes­la car deal­er­ship in 2019 locat­ed in a state cap­i­tal. They do not know which state cap­i­tal; they only know that it is a state cap­i­tal. There, at the deal­er­ship, they will find what looks like a pro­to­type of a Self-Dri­ving Space X Hov­er Car in the dis­play area. Though it looks like a pro­to­type, it is ful­ly oper­a­tional. They are to steal this hov­er­car. It is pre­pro­grammed to dri­ve them lin­eal­ly to Nia­gara Falls.

There at Nia­gara Falls, they will find Niko­la Tesla’s Secret Time Anni­hi­la­tor hid­den in a deep bunker at the Adams Pow­er Plant Trans­former House. The instruc­tions for oper­at­ing the Time Anni­hi­la­tor will be in a file cab­i­net labeled Instruc­tions for Time Annihilator.

Then the four sci­en­tists step into their time-trav­el­ing pods and are sent to the year 2019. How­ev­er, there is a glitch. Though they arrive at a Tes­la car deal­er­ship, they arrive in dif­fer­ent cities across the Unit­ed States, each of which is a state capital.

They each break into their respec­tive Tes­la deal­er­ships, steal the Space X Hov­er Cars and begin trav­el­ing to Nia­gara Falls.

How­ev­er, since the Space X Hov­er Cars are 2019 designs, they do not oper­ate at full capac­i­ty, which means that the hov­er cars will not dri­ve them the short­est dis­tance from their orig­i­nat­ing point to Nia­gara Falls. Thus, these four bril­liant sci­en­tists are in for an adventure.

Moser leaves her city with her hov­er­car dri­ving her 400 km per hour for two hours and 30 min­utes, head­ing east out of the city. Her car then goes south for an hour, trav­el­ing at 300 km per hour. It then turns east and trav­els 200 km per hour for five hours. Then it trav­els north at 150 km per hour for two hours. Her car then turns east and trav­els 335 km per hour for two hours. Final­ly, at 140 km per hour, her car trav­els north for two hours and thir­ty min­utes. She then arrives at Nia­gara Falls.

Marcet leaves her city head­ing north with her hov­er­car dri­ving at 110 km per hour for three hours. It then turns east and leisure­ly trav­els at 75 km per hour for eight hours and 20 min­utes. She arrives at Nia­gara Falls.

Joliot-Curie’s hov­er­car dri­ves her out of her city, head­ing north at 120 km per hour for five hours. Her car then turns east and trav­els at 400 km per hour for two hours and 30 min­utes. Her car turns north again and trav­els at 480 km per hour for one hour and 15 min­utes. Turn­ing east, it then trav­els at 150 km per hour for four hours. Final­ly, close to Nia­gara Falls, Curie’s car dri­ves her north at 200 km per hour for one hour, where she arrives at Nia­gara Falls.

Karle’s car dri­ves her out of her city, head­ing south, dri­ving at 240 km per hour for two hours and 30 min­utes. Her hov­er­car turns east and trav­els at 400 km per hour for two hours. Her hov­er­car then turns south again, dri­ving at 320 km per hour for two hours and thir­ty min­utes. Her car then trav­els east at 400 km per hour for six hours and 15 min­utes. It then turns north, and she trav­els at 250 km per hour for three hours and 12 min­utes. Yes, 12 min­utes. Her car then trav­els east at 400 km per hour for one hour and 24 min­utes. Final­ly, close to her des­ti­na­tion, her car turns north and trav­els at 200 km per hour for one hour. She also arrives at Nia­gara Falls.

The sci­en­tists then enter the pow­er plant and make their way to the bunker under the pow­er plant. Lo and behold is Tesla’s Secret Time Anni­hi­la­tor. Con­ve­nient­ly, the instruc­tions are still in the file cab­i­net labeled Tesla’s Secret Time Anni­hi­la­tor. Care­ful­ly fol­low­ing the direc­tions, Moser, Marcet, Joliot-Curie, and Kar­le oblit­er­ate the year 2020. Upon delet­ing the year 2020, they are imme­di­ate­ly trans­port­ed back to 2220. All is right with the world.

So, how many lin­ear kilo­me­ters did each sci­en­tist trav­el from their orig­i­nal des­ti­na­tions to Nia­gara Falls? In oth­er words, what was the total dis­tance each hov­er­car trav­eled to get to Nia­gara Falls? Also, what state cap­i­tal did each sci­en­tist trav­el from?

I cre­at­ed this puz­zle using the Mea­sure Dis­tance func­tion in Google maps. www.google.com/maps It is real­ly handy. You set your orig­i­na­tion point, right-click, and scroll down to Mea­sure dis­tance. You will then see a white and black dot from your orig­i­nat­ing loca­tion. From there, you click on the next point on the map to trace the path to the next destination.

You can keep trac­ing out the path to fig­ure out where each sci­en­tist start­ed. Google maps will show the miles (and kilo­me­ters) in total, so you will have to keep track of the kilo­me­ters from point to point. Hint: The hov­er­car nev­er hov­ers over the oceans. Remem­ber, the puz­zle is in kilometers.

Since this is not an exact puz­zle and we are approx­i­mat­ing it, I chose the cap­i­tal of the states for orig­i­nat­ing points. That way, if you find your­self close to your des­ti­na­tion and are in the right state, the answer is the cap­i­tal of that state.

Once you deter­mine where each sci­en­tist came from, write down the first let­ter of each city’s name. If the cap­i­tal has two or three names, write down the first let­ters of each name. For exam­ple, Baton Rouge, the cap­i­tal of Louisiana, is not­ed as BR.

Once you have all the first let­ters of each of the four state cap­i­tals, you have an ana­gram. Rearrange the let­ters so that you have a name for some­thing that rep­re­sents a life we would all have if we were not in a pandemic.

So, you will need to answer:

1. How many kilo­me­ters did each sci­en­tist trav­el from her orig­i­nal des­ti­na­tion to Nia­gara Falls?
2. What state cap­i­tal did Moser, Marcet, Joliot-Curie, and Kar­le orig­i­nate from?
3. What is the answer to the anagram?

Once you solve the puz­zle, send me an email! The first per­son to send the cor­rect answer to Gabrielle@mathsciencehistory.com will win a $25 Ama­zon gift card. Please sub­mit your answer along with an email where I can send you your eGift card! Please put the head­er “MATH SCIENCE HISTORY HOLIDAY PUZZLE” so that I see it. Also, please note: if you are in anoth­er coun­try, please let me know so that I can send a gift card that is site and cur­ren­cy-spe­cif­ic for your location.

THANKS FOR PLAYING! HAVE A WONDERFUL HOLIDAY!

via GIPHY

Until 2021, Carpe Diem!

Gabrielle