"Aftermath" - September 17, 2021

A place to discuss the weekly Wall Street Journal Crossword Puzzle Contest, starting every Thursday around 4:00 p.m. Eastern time. Please do not post any answers or hints before the contest deadline which is midnight Sunday Eastern time.
Locked
User avatar
Bob cruise director
Cruise Director
Posts: 4512
Joined: Thu Apr 11, 2019 2:38 pm
Location: Any golf course within 500 miles of Littleton MA

#381

Post by Bob cruise director »

hoover wrote: Sun Sep 19, 2021 6:19 pm Well I wandered off after posting success on Thursday, and I come back to find y'all are talking about slide rules. Here's my contribution to the collection, a Sun Hemmi No. 259, the 1954 model, although mine has an HD date code which puts it at April 1957.

RIMG0953.JPG

RIMG0954.JPG
A more than worthy addition
Bob Stevens
Cruise Director
JeanneC
Posts: 616
Joined: Sat Apr 25, 2020 11:25 am
Location: Florida

#382

Post by JeanneC »

Had a six inch slide rule in high school but switched to the circular one.
It had a pocket for the periodic table. Used it for the state high school exams in physics and math. (Yep, I passed.)
Looked like the one in Spock’s hand in the photo posted earlier. Good enough for a Vulcan, good enough for me.
“I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashions”. Lillian Hellman
User avatar
TheCatt
Posts: 88
Joined: Sat Feb 06, 2021 9:53 pm

#383

Post by TheCatt »

We finally go to the puzzle post dinner after a busy weekend, and were delighted to find a relatively easy swim to shore! Fortunately we had no need to swim to shore this weekend while rafting the Gauley.

We are on shore.
User avatar
Bob cruise director
Cruise Director
Posts: 4512
Joined: Thu Apr 11, 2019 2:38 pm
Location: Any golf course within 500 miles of Littleton MA

#384

Post by Bob cruise director »

Our final count is 261 on the shore and 2 staying with isaac for the week.

As always whenever we are close to a record, I will do a final check in the morning to see if we broke the record after one week.

Making it to shore since noon are

heddafish
TheCatt
cremebrulee
flyingMoose
Dennis
Limerick

Also note that the link to the zoom talk on Friday with Matt Gaffney and Pete Muller is on post #375.
Bob Stevens
Cruise Director
hoover
Posts: 1221
Joined: Mon Mar 29, 2021 7:26 pm

#385

Post by hoover »

mikeB wrote: Fri Sep 17, 2021 4:55 pm
SReh26 wrote: Thu Sep 16, 2021 11:22 pm I remember a discussion in the college cafeteria about the value of a “math background” (we meant 😅 up to calc in HS!) in other majors. Those of us with a math background said no question it was valuable to whatever we were then studying. Those who didn’t made their predictable protestations to the contrary.
I studied math at Berkeley. I considered mechanical engineering -- very interesting curriculum, but the math was way too hard, so I studied math instead.
I studied electrical engineering at Rice. I chose EE because of the applied math and equations. Actual math didn't seem to have any numbers.
Last edited by hoover on Mon Sep 20, 2021 11:06 am, edited 1 time in total.
WSJosh
Posts: 152
Joined: Fri May 08, 2020 9:20 am
Location: Nashville, TN

#386

Post by WSJosh »

Finally had a minute to work on this and knocked out the grid and meta. On shore!
DaveWa
Posts: 45
Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 1:43 pm
Location: Lincoln, NE

#387

Post by DaveWa »

Just for the record (I know it's dangerous to play around with puns in this group, but I couldn't resist. :)), I'm ashore.
User avatar
LadyBird
Posts: 872
Joined: Fri Apr 17, 2020 4:20 pm
Location: Chicagoland

#388

Post by LadyBird »

From a few years ago...my son took his grandpa's slide rule to his first day at his engineering internship. I'm not sure how well he knew the workings of a slide rule-- thus the calculator.
kgiano
Posts: 37
Joined: Mon Mar 22, 2021 10:45 am

#389

Post by kgiano »

ASHORE! Straightforward puzzle.
kgiano
Posts: 37
Joined: Mon Mar 22, 2021 10:45 am

#390

Post by kgiano »

LadyBird wrote: Sun Sep 19, 2021 1:24 pm Finally got around to finishing the grid (got the meta on Thursday). My puzzle OCD wouldn't allow me to leave those blanks.

Why is it called Reverse POLISH Notation? Never heard of this--but my financial planner husband had.
The description "Polish" refers to the nationality of logician Jan Łukasiewicz, who invented Polish notation in 1924.

You calculate by inputting the arguments first, then the operand:

3 4 +
User avatar
Joe Ross
Moderator
Posts: 5000
Joined: Fri Apr 12, 2019 4:46 am
Location: Cincinnati

#391

Post by Joe Ross »

Image
User avatar
Joe Ross
Moderator
Posts: 5000
Joined: Fri Apr 12, 2019 4:46 am
Location: Cincinnati

#392

Post by Joe Ross »

DaveWa wrote: Sun Sep 19, 2021 10:26 pm Just for the record (I know it's dangerous to play around with puns in this group, but I couldn't resist. :)), I'm ashore.
I was expecting a Beach Blanket Bingo joke, or some such. 🏖🕺🏻💃🏻🎶
Franklin.Bluth
Posts: 199
Joined: Thu Oct 15, 2020 10:22 pm

#393

Post by Franklin.Bluth »

Screenshot_20210918-114119.png
The answer is OBTUSE.

The title of the puzzle was AFTERMATH, so right away we know we're looking for some math-related clues (further reinforced by 72A, "Math branch with six main functions = TRIG").

Right away, I spotted one of those functions hiding in the long answer ETHICS COMMITTEE: CSC, the abbreviation for "cosecant".

Pretty quick work to find the other 5:

SIN, sine
COS, cosine
TAN, tangent
SEC, secant
COT, cotangent

Then you just take the title at face value and look for the letter after the math function, and voila, the answer emerges.
User avatar
escapeartist
Posts: 419
Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2020 12:24 am

#394

Post by escapeartist »

I'm feeling it - this is my week for the holy grail of meta-dom - the WSJ contest mug!
* 2022 WSJ Mug Winner - I bask in its Glory *
User avatar
JimJim
Posts: 114
Joined: Sun Feb 16, 2020 2:33 pm
Location: Dallas, TX

#395

Post by JimJim »

I couldn't help but think of the line in Shawshank between Andy and the warden. :lol:
Dplass
Posts: 1739
Joined: Sat Dec 28, 2019 10:09 am

#396

Post by Dplass »

JimJim wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 7:01 am I couldn't help but think of the line in Shawshank between Andy and the warden. :lol:
Your soul may belong to the Lord?
User avatar
DianeA
Posts: 101
Joined: Wed Feb 24, 2021 7:58 am
Location: Southport, NC

#397

Post by DianeA »

Oh no!!! I'm not on the correct shore.
I submitted "RATIOS", as it was a six-letter math term that perfectly described clues. Trig ratios. I waited a day and tried to see a step two, but with so many solvers, I felt that "easy" answer was it.
My only glitch was that there were several times the word "ratios" was found in these postings...i figured they were slip ups.
User avatar
Joepickett
Posts: 401
Joined: Sat May 09, 2020 5:38 pm
Location: Virginia

#398

Post by Joepickett »

DianeA wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 7:09 am Oh no!!! I'm not on the correct shore.
I submitted "RATIOS", as it was a six-letter math term that perfectly described clues. Trig ratios. I waited a day and tried to see a step two, but with so many solvers, I felt that "easy" answer was it.
My only glitch was that there were several times the word "ratios" was found in these postings...i figured they were slip ups.
Yes I did the same thing. I was distracted by pain all weekend so I'll blame it on that. Going to the doc now. MOJO is gone
FatJack
Posts: 54
Joined: Fri Sep 03, 2021 5:23 pm

#399

Post by FatJack »

Thought I was ashore Friday night. Turns out that land I spotted was a fog bank called "Angles"
Jeanrosz
Posts: 306
Joined: Fri Apr 12, 2019 1:16 pm
Location: New Richmond ohio

#400

Post by Jeanrosz »

I am so totally surprised that the moderators allowed the picture of the calculator with sin, cos, tan keys! And then another post mentioned the orange key for inverse. That was step one to the puzzle… how did that pass someone’s eyes?
Locked