[Guest]

As promised - the third installment.

***

The group ventured into the last open door and find themselves moving away from the Greek temple into a futuristic tunnel. The marble floors were replaced with steel floor tiles, the stone/marble walls replaced with aluminum ones that seem hide secret passages at every turn.

"Back to the future?" chuckled Lee. That eased the tense air surrounding the companions. Soon they were exchanging small conversations, until they came to a room with 5 doorways, each with one of their names written on it, and a sign in the middle. At the end of the room, there were close to a hundred small boxes, all which are of different colors - some are solid, some are transparent.

Jeanne opened a transparent green one and sees a key inside. She opened another, a solid blue one with white lines, and finds another key.

"Now what?"

"Let's try looking for clues."

They crowded around the sign, which reads;

Under that sign, the following message is seen;

"Welcome to the next leg of your journey. I hope you paid attention in class, you'll need it. Find the correct key. The clues should give you the correct box. Solve this and we'll give you more information about your... situation. Have fun.

Oh, a word of advice, don't try your luck - get the wrong key twice, and you lose. I don't think you enjoy the prospects of rotting in this tunnel for eternity."

A = a

B = c

C = k

D = k

E = m

F = m

G = s

"What is this supposed to mean?" asked Dave.

"I have no idea. I don't think we can make sense of it yet - let's go explore. I mean, they took the time to write our names. We should be good guests," said Clavius sarcastically. "We can still keep in touch with these." He help up his PDA.

"Okay."

They entered their respective doorways. At the end of the room, they find a small chest with different messages.

'Dudes. Found box with clue.' - Dave

'Same here.' -Jeanne

'Ditto.' -Clavius

'Write it down and be back in room pronto.' -Yulianna

A

E^-1D^-1G³A²

C + 273

Final E²G^-2

EDG^-2

They wrote down their clues in their respective PDAs and went back to the room.

"Let's get started." Jeanne said as they laid the PDA-clues down.

***

I had a few working ideas, the rest needed a bit of extra work. This is the ready one - but untested: I hope it's not too long a shot. Oh well, I'll just put this out. Have fun.

Edited April 8, 2009 by scsw

[Guest]

When you refer to the SI units list are you refering to Clue #1 or to the order of the clues with the names?

To your question: Clue #1.

If we assume C stands for Celsius, then perhaps C - 273 refers to -273 degrees Celsius which is almost absolute Zero. In SI units, this would be 0K or perhaps K0.

Contrary to popular belief, Celcius is not an SI unit.

[Guest]

To your question: Clue #1.

Contrary to popular belief, Celcius is not an SI unit.

Are we looking for an SI unit that begins with C?

Coulomb, Candela

[DudleyDude]

To your question: Clue #1.

Contrary to popular belief, Celcius is not an SI unit.

I didn't say it was. That is why I said that the SI equivalent would be 0K where K was Kelvin. But according to NIST, Celsius is an SI derived unit (full name is "degree Celsius") just like Newton, Siemens and Gray.

http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/units.html

[Guest]

Ampere

Siemens

Candela

Sievert

Newton

[Guest]

Are we looking for an SI unit that begins with C?

Coulomb, Candela

I didn't say it was. That is why I said that the SI equivalent would be 0K where K was Kelvin. But according to NIST, Celsius is an SI derived unit (full name is "degree Celsius") just like Newton, Siemens and Gray.

http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/units.html

You are right. Since you guys have figured out it's a SI units, Clue #1 lists down only the basic SI units. Not derived ones. And think of alphabets A-G as substitutions. That should clear things up.

Ampere

Siemens

Candela

Sievert

Newton

Some of them are wrong.

[plasmid]

A ampere

B candela

C kelvin

D kilogram

E meter

F mole

G second

While candela and mole were never used in the people's clues, they would be the SI units listed in alphabetical order.

As far as the solutions to the people's individual puzzles (SI derived units):

Siemens (Clavius' s3 a2 m-2 kg-1)

Ampere (Dave's a)

Newton (Jeane's kg m s-2)

Celcius (Lee's k-273)

Grey (or Sievert) (Yuliana's m2 s-2)

Not any clearer to me after alphabetizing the answers based on the person's name.

It would make Yuliana's "Final" make more sense.

Too bad SANCG, SANCGy, SANCS, and SANCSv aren't French words

[DudleyDude]

Ok, so Lee's original (corrected) clue was: C - 273. Doing the substitution from clue #1 gives us: k - 273. This is basically the definition of the derived unit Celsius (Kelvin - 273.15). So based on that, the new list would look like:

Ampere

Siemens

Celsius

Gray

Newton.

Are these 5 correct, even if they aren't in the correct order?

[Guest]

A ampere

B candela

C kelvin

D kilogram

E meter

F mole

G second

While candela and mole were never used in the people's clues, they would be the SI units listed in alphabetical order.

As far as the solutions to the people's individual puzzles (SI derived units):

Siemens (Clavius' s3 a2 m-2 kg-1)

Ampere (Dave's a)

Newton (Jeane's kg m s-2)

Celcius (Lee's k-273)

Grey (or Sievert) (Yuliana's m2 s-2)

Not any clearer to me after alphabetizing the answers based on the person's name.

It would make Yuliana's "Final" make more sense.

Too bad SANCG, SANCGy, SANCS, and SANCSv aren't French words

You are getting closer.

Final has another purpose.

Ok, so Lee's original (corrected) clue was: C - 273. Doing the substitution from clue #1 gives us: k - 273. This is basically the definition of the derived unit Celsius (Kelvin - 273.15). So based on that, the new list would look like:

Ampere

Siemens

Celsius

Gray

Newton.

Are these 5 correct, even if they aren't in the correct order?

That is correct.

[Guest]

So we have

A (Dave's a)

S (Clavius' s3 a2 m-2 kg-1)

C (Lee's k-273)

Gy (or Sv) (Yuliana's m2 s-2)

N (Jeane's kg m s-2)

Since Yuliana's clue was preceded by "Final", maybe we're just taking the "Y"?

How many boxes would there be if we looked for all of the CYANS? Too many to try all of their keys without too many wrong guesses?

Just think of bringing this up again. Very relevant.

[DudleyDude]

Taking Plasmid's order and letting the "final" refer to the final letter in Gray, instead of the first, we get SANCY. I didn't recognize this as a word but wiki reveals that it is a famous diamond, so I think it is a possibility. So, is the key in the pale yellow translucent cube? Because those poor dudes are going to starve soon if we don't figure this out...

[Guest]

Taking Plasmid's order and letting the "final" refer to the final letter in Gray, instead of the first, we get SANCY. I didn't recognize this as a word but wiki reveals that it is a famous diamond, so I think it is a possibility. So, is the key in the pale yellow translucent cube? Because those poor dudes are going to starve soon if we don't figure this out...

They had rations.

Up to 2 weeks at least. And you've just solved it. It is correct - SANCY diamond is a pale yellow translucent diamond. You get this after rearranging the symbols you get alphabetically. Gj guys. Methinks this is solved too quickly. Next one's gonna be tough.