Comments on: Independent 7,658/Phi

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Wed, 04 May 2011 16:29:04 +0000

Maths is the background of quite a few setters, Monk and the sadly recently departed Viking, to mention just two.

By: Ali

Ali — Wed, 04 May 2011 11:49:43 +0000

Thanks to all for the comments, corrections and pointers, and to Phi for revealing the inspiration. Good to see that we bloggers can influence puzzles.

And I’m with the maths = science crew too. Biology, chemistry, physics, maths – I was bad at them all at school, so it must be that I’m just not a scientist!

By: ele

ele — Wed, 04 May 2011 11:21:50 +0000

Gauss said that “mathematics is the queen of the sciences”, so there you go..

By: Phi

Phi — Wed, 04 May 2011 06:51:49 +0000

I’m with beermagnet on mathematicians being the quintessential scientists – whatever universities may say in their degrees. This puzzle arose from a grumble from a blogger here who complained that there were never any themed puzzles about mathematicians. Well, there’s one now.

By: Wil Ransome

Wil Ransome — Tue, 03 May 2011 23:05:10 +0000

The usual excellent fare from Phi. No major criticisms, but why bother with ‘Regarding’ in 7dn, since the library itself is called the Bodleian rather than the Bodley?

I thought 17dn was wonderful.

In the blog Ali I think it’s really (manoeuv{re} n n n)* for otherwise how is the fact that the n’s are separated taken care of?

By: ele

ele — Tue, 03 May 2011 22:41:52 +0000

many thanks beermagnet – i never thought of tan givers. Was working on ‘sounds like’ tanners.

By: beermagnet

beermagnet — Tue, 03 May 2011 21:01:16 +0000

ele: 16D TANGIERS: Sunbeds are “tan givers”, take away the V for very (not very evident) gives you an African city

By: ele

ele — Tue, 03 May 2011 20:04:38 +0000

Venn was the way into this for me too and all the names were known. Finished this one in well under an hour on the commute, which is good going. Liked 1d as although simple it’s clever as Otago is real sheep country with lots of merinos. Thanks Phi for the entertaining puzzle and Ali for the blog – and for explaining wordplay to mathematician. I still don’t understand the wordplay for Tangiers though.

By: flashling

flashling — Tue, 03 May 2011 17:21:17 +0000

@hounddog #7 my Mathematics degree is an BA (or MA if I want to pay the fee sometime) but I still consider me more scientist than artist and mathematics itself to be an Art.

Think this is a tuesday bump as it’s more blatantly themed than many of Phi’s offerings and thus fits nicely the Indy’s themed tuesdays.

Only had to check Maecenas when I got home, as I couldn’t remember him.

Thanks Ali for blog and Phi for a quick search through the cobwebs in my brain for some mathematicians.

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Tue, 03 May 2011 15:17:00 +0000

I saw the theme straightaway when I got FERMAT from the first clue and counted the number of letters in MATHEMATICIAN. Quite tricky in places but all clear in the end with the less familiar names clued in a way that you could (eventually) work them out from the wordplay. Thanks, Phi, and Ali for the blog.