Let's Fire Up Those Neurons!

Discussion in 'Education & Personal Growth' started by Gauri03, Jul 23, 2014.

  1. Aria

    Aria New IL'ite

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    Satellite television marked the beginning of riveted television viewing but also concomitantly decommissioned evening playtime. To me the early 90's memories is enumerating from aerial view of our flat plenary of ~70 kids playing.


    Doff the school bag, don playwear and rush to join the kids. Days when parents would cleave hobbled buddies, against wail another game, plz and drag home for supper. We stayed in a community of around 25 blocks of apartments (excluding outliers), you can imagine the playmates, and our group consisting of around 50 regulars clashing with the occupancy of the playground with other groups. Thinking about it now, how on earth did I even remember all those names! The families, the relationships, who was whose cousin, who studied in which school. We would have played till 9:00PM, unremitting when twinkling street lamps took over the twilight, howling of passerby elders — "Go to your houses, don't you have school , homework?"


    Even today my siblings pine for those days, reconnected with some of the old friends in FB my sis tells me etched in everyone's mind are those beautiful childhood days. I think we (kids growing in my neighbourhood) had memorable childhood that a kid can ask for against the cross-cultural backdrop of Indian diversity.
     
    Last edited: Sep 21, 2014
  2. Aria

    Aria New IL'ite

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    Celebrations and competitions in schools, you never know which school is hosting what, coz all the kids would jump , thump and sometimes gatecrash. We would assist each other in singing and dancing competitions, teaching each other the "hep" styles, exchange inter-school projects. Paradise, not lost or regained but frozen in memory! Small town , small aspirations but as good as it can get. I can chew volumes of my mid-90s before the advent of cable upturned dynamics, abandoned grounds, ah! ushering in another era, not a sinister one as forecasted by the community elders when cable was sanctioned to zoom past the homes, "Enlightenment Era" after the Romanticizing , as I put it.
     
  3. sokanasanah

    sokanasanah IL Hall of Fame

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    So are we giving up on text-mechanics? Well, let’s see if Sandhya stops by to protest – gotta keep those lurkers on their toes!

    (1)
    Yo vai bhuma tat sukham,
    Nalpe sukham asti,
    Bhumaiva sukham.

    This clue is from the Chandogya Upanishad. One possible translation is:

    The Infinite is the satisfying happiness.
    In the finite no happiness can ever breathe.
    The Infinite alone is the fulfilling happiness.

    So, this should lead you to “Infinity”**.

    (2) The second clue is, of course, from “Alice in Wonderland”. Most of the passage provides context - the actual clue is “much of a muchness” and a drawing of “muchness” that the Dormouse is referring to. (Try eliminating sentences before this one, and you will see that the passage is not ‘self contained’).

    'Much of a muchness' is a reference to degrees of infinity. Also, see below.

    (3) The third clue is to a heavy metal, sludge, grunge, rock band called ‘Aleph Null’. The name of the band is the clue. “Aleph Null” is the lowest degree of infinity, symbolized as:
    Image-1.jpg

    Solution:
    ‘Infinity’ and ‘Aleph Null’ should lead you directly to Georg Cantor. The symbol on the photograph of this great mathematician is an ‘Aleph’, the first letter in the Hebrew alphabet. That is the 'drawing of a muchness' a la the Dormouse.

    Cantor’s great achievement was to mathematically prove that not all infinities are the same! That is, there are degrees of infinity!

    Just as we count from one, to two to three and so on ad infinitum, we can count from Infinity one, to Infinity two to Infinity three and so on ad infinitum! Some infinities are larger than others. Cantor called the smallest infinity ‘Aleph Null’, then ‘Aleph One’ and so on. If this is not mind-bending, I don’t know what is. These ideas caused great consternation among mathematicians when Cantor first published them. I would highly recommend reading the first couple of chapters of Rudy Rucker’s book, linked earlier. The goal is not to blind you with science, but to point to something so utterly counter-intuitive as to wake you up to the sheer mysteriousness of the Universe. Astonishing!

    **Note that this translation is iffy. Rather than ‘Infinity’, ‘boundless’ or ‘absolute’ may be a better choice. For the purposes of this puzzle, I fudged a bit.
     
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  4. sokanasanah

    sokanasanah IL Hall of Fame

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    OK, I am chastened :hide:!
    Try this marginally trickier one.

    Image-2.jpg Image-3.jpg Image-4.jpg Image-1.jpg

    Task: Identify one of my favorite English films.
    Clues: Some of my other favorite films above (German, French, Danish and English). Each clue is a word in the title.

    Since the last one was so easy for you, I will leave this as is. More clues as required!
     
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  5. Aria

    Aria New IL'ite

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    Turkish Delight?
     
  6. Aria

    Aria New IL'ite

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    Sorry, notice there are more clues, I picked up the puzzle when the board was sketchy (in version#1 of the post).


    Patterned as lowlands, crunched, adopted storyline and arrived at "Turkish Delight". I need to rework the puzzle now that there are more clues added.
     
  7. Aria

    Aria New IL'ite

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    Er, 'word in the title' of the to-be-identified film or films listed as clues?
     
  8. Aria

    Aria New IL'ite

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    ? nnaM samohT yb allevon morf eivom sa detpada ,"ecineV ni htaeD" : tpmettA rehtonA


    )"htaeD" sa dexelfni dna namreG ton hsilgnE ni drow laretilsnart gnikat( eiD #1erutciP
    )"nI"( ledifnI #2erutciP
    ?drawA ecineV eht noW #3erutciP
    !nailatI #4erutciP


    )ecnamofrep roop ym no hcum oot daeh ruoy ekahs t'nod(
     
    Last edited: Sep 22, 2014
  9. sokanasanah

    sokanasanah IL Hall of Fame

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    No, all wrong! Hmmm, I need a 'rubbing hands with glee' emoji here, but this will have to do. :rotfl


    Each clue suggests one word in the answer film title i.e. in the 'to be identified' film - so four clues, four words at least. 'Death in Venice' does not fit, right?

    Clues are sort of one remove away, so straight substitution won't work.
     
  10. Aria

    Aria New IL'ite

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    Okkkky!

    (cracking my knuckles)

    ?rehto = ledifni

    Holy Heifer! What movies, what sounds, what music, what are your tastes Soka (swiping my brow) :x
     

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