Konokopia

Cryptogram Sample

There are 29 cryptograms in my book “My Silly Puzzles”. In the book, you have to decode a message, a secret note, but in this sample, you just have to decode some unrelated words.

I’m a fan of puzzle apps. My iPhone is loaded with them. “Lara Croft GO”, “Hexologic” and “The Room” series are my favorites. But I no longer buy apps. I now challenge myself by creating puzzles and then challenge myself again by solving them. It’s fun. Paper puzzles introduce us to the pleasure of reason and the pleasure of silence. It is a form of meditation. (You have to take deep, slow breaths.)

I’ve noticed that electronic puzzle games reinforce our short attention spans. We invest little effort into solving them. We treat them as action games. If a puzzle requires too long a thought, we just click it away and move on to another one that’s less stressful. (Thinking can cause stress.)

Paper puzzles, because they don’t offer instant solution checks, force us to try harder to solve each puzzle. Also, electronic puzzles seem to be in endless supply, so we value each one less. Puzzles in a book are limited—we know exactly how many we have—so each one becomes precious. We don’t want to waste it.

Well, here’s the cryptogram:

0578, 91244, 357, 386, 64273

miscellany
mishmash
+ mess
———————
7342469930

(Unfortunately, this works only with monospaced fonts like Courier, which I use in the book for these and a couple of other types of puzzles.)

“Louise and Her Knees”
Sample Puzzle and Solution

There are 15 “Louise” puzzles (from Anderson, Louise, to O’Brien, Louise*) in my book “My Silly Puzzles”.** The set is introduced with a short poem—“I love silver, I love gold, / But most of all, I love olde. / I love olde trees, I love olde cheese, / I love olde knees, I love…”

Here is a new Louise.

Parker, Louise
If Louise is twice as old as Larry who is six years older than Mary, and half as old as Mark who is twenty-four years older than Clark who is four times older than Mary and three times older than Larry, then how old is Louise?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
SOLUTION:
The puzzle can be solved by trial and error or by using algebra. Using trial and error may be quicker, but using algebra feels more satisfying.

To solve it with algebra, we translate the information we are given into equations.

Louise = 2Larry
Larry = Mary + 6
Louise = Mark / 2
Mark = Clark + 24
Clark = 4Mary
Clark = 3Larry

The last, and the first, two equations are the key. (At least the key to one way of solving this puzzle with algebra.)

Clark = 4Mary = 3Larry

But,
Larry = Mary + 6

So,
3Larry = 3(Mary + 6) = 3Mary + 18

Thus,
4Mary = 3Mary + 18
Mary = 18

And—
Louise = 2Larry = 2(Mary + 6)
Louise = 48

———————————————
* The names are real, but any resemblance to actual persons is entirely coincidental.
** Available at https://www.amazon.com/author/maciek_jozefowicz

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