Rising From The Depths February 18, 2024

[hcbirker]

Rising From The Depths

Themed, pseudo-meta from Evan.

[damefox]

Fun puzzle, but "polyatomic atom"?? Evan, weren't you a chemistry major at Haverford? What's up with that clue for ION?

[Joe Ross]

Fun!

Longest down clues & entries very entertaining.

[KayW]

Clever - thanks!

[ebirnholz]

@damefox:

Fun puzzle, but "polyatomic atom"??

This was a case where I psyched myself out. Ions are atoms with a net electric charge, so it's not uncommon to see "atom" in a definition for ION and just move on. I was originally going to use the clue [Monatomic or polyatomic particle] but even that might have been wrong, too, since a polyatomic ion consists of two or more atoms and so by definition maybe it isn't considered a single particle anyway. I ended up changing the wording online to "polyatomic unit" which I think is more accurate.

The thing I really want to address, though, is this:

Evan, weren't you a chemistry major at Haverford? What's up with that clue for ION?

Making a mistake on any clue is always frustrating for me, but I don't think an error like this is something I should consider more embarrassing because of what I studied in college. Yes, I was a chemistry major ... two decades ago. I wasn't great at it. I only did it because I was pre-med at the time and I liked organic chemistry (it was kinda like putting a puzzle together), and then ran into physical chemistry the year after I declared and despised it more than just about every class I took in college other than economics.

Obviously it's possible to notice that "polyatomic atom" is contradictory even without a chemistry degree, but I wouldn't assume that just because I did get one a long time ago means that I should make fewer mistakes on chemistry-related clues than in other subjects. It's just an error that got by me. It happens.

[damefox]

@damefox:

Fun puzzle, but "polyatomic atom"??

This was a case where I psyched myself out. Ions are atoms with a net electric charge, so it's not uncommon to see "atom" in a definition for ION and just move on. I was originally going to use the clue [Monatomic or polyatomic particle] but even that might have been wrong, too, since a polyatomic ion consists of two or more atoms and so by definition maybe it isn't considered a single particle anyway. I ended up changing the wording online to "polyatomic unit" which I think is more accurate.

The thing I really want to address, though, is this:

Evan, weren't you a chemistry major at Haverford? What's up with that clue for ION?

Making a mistake on any clue is always frustrating for me, but I don't think an error like this is something I should consider more embarrassing because of what I studied in college. Yes, I was a chemistry major ... two decades ago. I wasn't great at it. I only did it because I was pre-med at the time and I liked organic chemistry (it was kinda like putting a puzzle together), and then ran into physical chemistry the year after I declared and despised it more than just about every class I took in college other than economics.

Obviously it's possible to notice that "polyatomic atom" is contradictory even without a chemistry degree, but I wouldn't assume that just because I did get one a long time ago means that I should make fewer mistakes on chemistry-related clues than in other subjects. It's just an error that got by me. It happens.

Fair enough, it happens. And it was very clear what the answer needed to be regardless (which is not always the case when I make these errors - I published a puzzle on Crosshare the other day where I clued ABODE as if it were ADOBE and didn’t notice until a solver expressed justified confusion in the comments). I didn’t mean to detract from the praise of this puzzle, which I really enjoyed!

[whimsy]

Like this a lot!

Thanks, Evan!