"AP Chemistry" - July 12, 2019

[darthdriessen]

I got the right answer through unscrambling the letters, not by the shaded letters in the answer key on Monday 's puzzle.

[MarkL]

Great construction. Have to confess to a mild case of pageant-a-phobia. The great number of twice-appearing or related words in the clues did give pause. The six pairs provided 12 potential letters to play with, given the logic/process of using first letters in the grid answers. Also, tried to look for 'aqueous' as a type of solution but no 'q' in the puzzle nor the standard periodic table, for that matter (bad pun not really intended!).

[Bird Lives]

I had considered going to the periodic table, but from the number of comments from early solvers, I figured that no research was required. Big mistake not to consider that original assumption.

[Bob cruise director]

I always had a weird affinity for the Periodic Table. One thing I noticed early in my science classes was that I could spell out my name in monotonically non-decreasing atomic numbers -- 13, 14, 16, 22 (Aluminum, Silicon, Sulfur, Titanium, or Al Si-s-ti). I spent most of every class after that trying to make up nonsense sentences using just the symbols of elements, while everyone else was...um...stud-y-ing? Did I pronounce that correctly?

I think you were in some of the same yawner classes I was

[LesY]

As promised - my “way too arcane” initial path was to look at the initial letters of the clues with the atomic numbers. Because I didn’t have thunderclap and cap pistol the first time through, that gave me AP-MOPS. I was thinking they wanted us to drop the AP again. But MOPS is a pretty obscure compound, and I guess there are mops in chemistry classes but that seemed off, too.

The reason I started down that path was I didn’t circle the grid letters like I usually do, and like others I thought what I had was gibberish. I solve with pencil and paper so I normally do that - not sure why I didn’t this week.

At some point I wondered where carbon/CAP was and finished it up from there.

[FrankieHeck]

I only got N, Sn, Cl, P, S, and Cr and came up with UNSUOL. So I figured it was "Solution" and didn't suss out the others because I was had to leave the house, but I was confident.

And I can honestly state I needed no Google for this. (Because one of my table placemats is of the Periodic Table.)

I also have a periodic table placemat. And placemats with maps of the US and the world. And the presidents. I refer to them surprisingly often. (And my kids are in their 20s haha)

[FrankieHeck]

Well it took me way too long to even find the AP step. I was trying to add AP to words. I guess I'm so bad at actual grid fill that I wasn't even that curious as to why some of the answers didn't make any sense. I thought I was just dumb.

Then when I finally got it and tracked down all the elements, I came up with the nonsense letters, too. I lazily typed them into an anagram solver and came up with the solution (I'm so funny). But it wasn't till I went back and circled them that I saw they were in order after all. So basically...same story as everyone else, I guess. With more of a lag at the beginning.

[Inca]

I only got N, Sn, Cl, P, S, and Cr and came up with UNSUOL. So I figured it was "Solution" and didn't suss out the others because I was had to leave the house, but I was confident.

And I can honestly state I needed no Google for this. (Because one of my table placemats is of the Periodic Table.)

I also have a periodic table placemat. And placemats with maps of the US and the world. And the presidents. I refer to them surprisingly often. (And my kids are in their 20s haha)

The only "school" placemat I have kept is the one my daughter made when she learned cursive writing (do they still teach that in school?). One side has the upper and lower case alphabet in cursive and the other side has the multiplication tables written out and of course it was laminated. I don't really refer to it, or even really use it...but it gives me pleasure and reminds me of the good times.

[BarbaraK]

And I typed something else about how when I was a noob and tried to beat Barb K to the answer at 9:00 PDT or PST, to exclaim the answer, she'd always beat me. Anyway, it was some big long drawn out thing. Let's post our answer together in 10 minutes sharp, Laura. Okay?

Ah, the good old days! Way back when I was young enough to actually be awake at midnight ES/DT. So so long ago. Oh, wait - these contests have only been around for four years. Hm.

I thought about your periodic table placements when I started seeing chemical symbols. Knew you’d get this one.

[BarbaraK]

OOOH, I was supposed to look at it column-wise. Well no wonder I didn't see that. I never highlight anything so that didn't pop for me. Maybe it's time to get a highlighter. But since I do the puzzle online, I won't use it anyway. Don't want to mess up my monitor.

Sometimes when I’m working online, I’ll make a pdf of the grid and annotate that. Highlighting that way is easier to undo when I realize I’m in a totally wrong rabbit hole.

[Bob cruise director]

As a note - I have found that sometimes comments don't post (like the one I just did) so it may not be an ID10T error but a glitch in the system somewhere. If someone has posted while you are posting, you get an alert and have to hit submit again but I usually miss that.

So we try again,
my main problem was realizing that all the "add on's" had to end in AP
while I got Nap for power
I had bounce back
and thunder bolt
and I thought that I needed something for pin like bowling/ten/candle/duck
and I missed trash heap all together
and I had pine pitch or tar

When I finally realized that they all had to end in AP, I got rid of Pin and only had seven letters
After guessing it should be SOLUTION, I was missing a second O so I went back and looked at the words that began with O in answers 2, 10, 16, 23, 43 and 54 and looked up the elements with those atomic numbers. I eliminated all but 10 (Neon) which gave me Neap and 2 Helium which gave me Heap. And I remembered Trash so I was home free.

At that point, I went to the stern of the ship to inspect Marge's garden, said good bye to Isaac and got to the shore to get some of my pretzels that Bunny had stolen and grabbed a Guinness from Al.

[BarbaraK]

I see I'm not the only one who didn't find all of the elements. I really think this puzzle needed to have starred answers or tell us the number of letters in the answer.
On my first pass I only had 6 of the 8 because they were obviously missing a word.
On my next pass I realized that it was "trash heap". The word trash can refer by itself to a pile of garbage, so I'm a little unhappy about that one.
I tried unscrambling, etc, but didn't see anything. I looked at all of the red herrings. Recipe, pasta sauce, & Simpsons are all in an A & D. Tonka is a toy company and intersects that clue.
There are 7 three letter grid entries with duplicate letters.
After going to the MMMM puzzle site, I realized that it must be simply going from element -> atomic number -> grid. I looked again and saw that it looked like solution. I needed an 'S' and saw that 17 had an 'S' and would make 'clap'.
I then realized that it must be "thunder clap" and submitted 'solution'.

I've lived in the US my whole life and I've never heard of "thunder clap" as a metaphor for a shocking surprise. I thought it was simply 'thunder' because "stealing someone's thunder" can mean to spoil a big surprise. Did anyone else miss thunder clap?

Having the theme answers symmetrical helped me find them and gave me confidence that I had all of them.

[Inca]

OOOH, I was supposed to look at it column-wise. Well no wonder I didn't see that. I never highlight anything so that didn't pop for me. Maybe it's time to get a highlighter. But since I do the puzzle online, I won't use it anyway. Don't want to mess up my monitor.

Sometimes when I’m working online, I’ll make a pdf of the grid and annotate that. Highlighting that way is easier to undo when I realize I’m in a totally wrong rabbit hole.

Yeah, I've actually created a very nice excel version of the grid and I can copy even the clues from the PDF into the excel template (in case MG gets evil) but honestly I do try to avoid going to the excel file because it does take a few minutes to set up the grid (highlight the black squares and enter the numbers). This week, though, I did have to use the excel file (too many steps to keep track of in my head), but I still was too lazy to highlight the squares. I still count the solve as 100% because I got the answer without having to "see" them in order.

[Tom Shea]

I always had a weird affinity for the Periodic Table. One thing I noticed early in my science classes was that I could spell out my name in monotonically non-decreasing atomic numbers -- 13, 14, 16, 22 (Aluminum, Silicon, Sulfur, Titanium, or Al Si-s-ti). I spent most of every class after that trying to make up nonsense sentences using just the symbols of elements, while everyone else was...um...stud-y-ing? Did I pronounce that correctly?

I think you were in some of the same yawner classes I was

Final exam for inorganic chemistry included (50% of grade) producing the periodic table by building the orbitals. Freehand, they didn't even give you graph paper. You had to name and produce atomic wt. for each. Fortunately, it did not include the rare earth elements, but you did have to show where they would fit in in the sequence. I hated that class. It was a big factor in switching to Engineering.

[KayW]

I see I'm not the only one who didn't find all of the elements. I really think this puzzle needed to have starred answers or tell us the number of letters in the answer.
On my first pass I only had 6 of the 8 because they were obviously missing a word.
On my next pass I realized that it was "trash heap". The word trash can refer by itself to a pile of garbage, so I'm a little unhappy about that one.
I tried unscrambling, etc, but didn't see anything. I looked at all of the red herrings. Recipe, pasta sauce, & Simpsons are all in an A & D. Tonka is a toy company and intersects that clue.
There are 7 three letter grid entries with duplicate letters.
After going to the MMMM puzzle site, I realized that it must be simply going from element -> atomic number -> grid. I looked again and saw that it looked like solution. I needed an 'S' and saw that 17 had an 'S' and would make 'clap'.
I then realized that it must be "thunder clap" and submitted 'solution'.

I've lived in the US my whole life and I've never heard of "thunder clap" as a metaphor for a shocking surprise. I thought it was simply 'thunder' because "stealing someone's thunder" can mean to spoil a big surprise. Did anyone else miss thunder clap?

I missed TRASH at first too, but looked for symmetry in the AP-themed clues to confirm THUNDER CLAP, SNAP BACK, and found TRASH HEAP.

Two confessions: I had to google the periodic table to get the numbers. And used an anagram solver to unscramble the resulting gibberish before circling the letters in the grid to see the columnar order.

[Stukmn]

The hardest part this week was not posting “I found the solution!”

[Streroto]

Had the letters in minutes. The anagram took me two days. ack indeed!! Anyway did anyone notice that if you connect the letters the picture looks like a beaker pouring out a solution OR a dipper (and yes Ursa Minor is an entry). No idea if this is by design but if so even more clever. Once again I thoroughly enjoyed this one. Well done.

[Toby]

I’m surprised there weren’t more accidental spoilers— complaints about not finding the solution, etc. I wonder how many people submitted Periodic Table...they will then know how it feels to be “pageanted”

[Janet P]

Having always enjoyed vicarious learning through my [now adult] children's schooling, I had an inkling of the correct path when NAP wasn't there with POWER. I only had a slight snag on "rebound" due to using the basketball term TAP BACK but after actually consulting the periodic table I realized SNAP was called for. Everything else fell into place readily.
When my youngest took AP Chemistry in high school, if the teacher had to be out for a day her sub plans consisted of, "Have Jim teach the class." He was able to quickly confirm that my answer made sense and there didn't seem to be any other suitable solution.

P.S. To Bob, our faithful cruise director: It's been a long time since I heard the old help desk phrase "ID10T error" And, of course, recalling Charlie's adventures is always delightful!

[BrianMac]

As a note - I have found that sometimes comments don't post (like the one I just did) so it may not be an ID10T error but a glitch in the system somewhere. If someone has posted while you are posting, you get an alert and have to hit submit again but I usually miss that.

I figured out how to adjust the settings so it will no longer show this alert. This should fix the problem of "disappearing" posts.