2.06 Quantum Time Vibrations

Order

2.04.01

Status

::MOCKUP::

Location Status

?

GC Point of Contact

?

Location Notes

Varian Physics building on the Stanford campus

Type

Optional Puzzle

Plot Setup

The time machine seems to be mostly working again (although the View-o-Scope remains broken), but we still don't know where Professor Chronos is or how to get her back – the situation is getting serious!

However, our global sensor network has just picked up a set of quantum time vibrations in several locations around the world. Maybe they'll help tell us what's happened to Professor Chronos!

Props

A few handouts, a world map, a bag of strings of various lengths

Plot Point to Convey

Chronos has sent some sort of message at the International Museum of Pretentious Art.

Short Description

The time machine has detected quantum time vibrations that might help the players locate where Prof. Chronos hid a message.

Detailed Description

The time machine is mostly fixed, but it's not calibrated, so Dr. When and the teams can't lock on to Prof. Chronos - and the View-o-Scope is broken, too. However, the time machine reports sensing "quantum time vibrations". By investigating these vibrations, the players may uncover a clue to Prof. Chronos' time or place. The puzzle consists of a map and strings which model a set of cities experiencing quantum time vibrations; the answer will point them toward the Art History puzzle.

Earlier concept

An ideal answer might be something like DEYOUNGMUSEUM, or maybe the names of several famous museums around the world (since that's where the altered art pieces will cause the "vibrations"). Alternatively, the answer could say something direct like CATHYSARTBOOK or ARTHISTORYTEXT or something similar.

Puzzle Answer

IMOPADOTINFO (the website for the International Museum of Pretentious Art, which is the "epicenter" of the vibrations and the location for the next puzzle).

Puzzle Solution

Part 1 gives the players a list of latitude and longitude coordinates, plus a world map. The motivation email says "once you determine where these signals are coming from", so the first step is to figure out the cities corresponding to each lat/long coordinate.

33⁰ 52' 6" S 151⁰ 13 56 E Sydney

28⁰ 36' 2" N 77⁰ 13 40 E New Delhi

30⁰ 2' 2" N 31⁰ 13 2 E Cairo

35⁰ 43' 5" N 139⁰ 46 30 E Tokyo

37⁰ 35' 1" N 126⁰ 58 52 E Seoul

38⁰ 53' 9" N 77⁰ 0 14 W DC

39⁰ 57' 11" N 75⁰ 10 54 W Philly

40⁰ 24' 2" N 3⁰ 41 18 W Madrid

40⁰ 24' 4" N 3⁰ 41 32 W Madrid

40⁰ 45' 11" N 73⁰ 58 26 W NYC

40⁰ 46' 7" N 73⁰ 57 6 W NYC

41⁰ 23' 7" N 2⁰ 10 36 E Barcelona

41⁰ 54' 3" N 12⁰ 26 20 E Vatican

43⁰ 16' 1" N 2⁰ 55 12 W Bilbao

43⁰ 46' 1" N 11⁰ 15 28 E Florence

43⁰ 46' 4" N 11⁰ 15 16 E Florence

48⁰ 51' 2" N 2⁰ 20 10 E Paris

48⁰ 51' 3" N 2⁰ 19 24 E Paris

48⁰ 51' 5" N 2⁰ 21 4 E Paris

51⁰ 29' 1" N 0⁰ 7 8 W London

51⁰ 30' 6" N 0⁰ 7 44 W London

51⁰ 31' 5" N 0⁰ 7 22 W London

52⁰ 21' 8" N 4⁰ 52 46 E Amsterdam

52⁰ 31' 3" N 13⁰ 23 38 E Berlin

52⁰ 31' 4" N 13⁰ 23 48 E Berlin

55⁰ 44' 1" N 37⁰ 36 34 E Moscow

55⁰ 44' 3" N 37⁰ 36 56 E Moscow

59⁰ 56' 2" N 30⁰ 18 42 E St. Petersburg

The next part of the instructions says "you may only have seconds to figure out what to do next", so index the latitude seconds into the city name, and order by the longitude seconds. This gives the message ASKLABORATORYFORMOREANALYSIS.

When the players ask the laboratory for more analysis, they'll be sent a second email and told to get more data from the lab assistant in the field; this includes the same list of latitude/longitude coordinates but with "flavors" and "polarizations" for each, plus a bag of "physical models of the vibrations" (pieces of string of different lengths).

The players should

- identify which string goes with which coordinate: each string reaches from the city indicated by the coordinates to San Mateo (the "epicenter"). For instance, the longest string goes from Sydney to San Mateo, whereas the shortest four strings go from Washington , D.C., Philadelphia, and New York City to San Mateo.

- group the strings by flavor (as suggested in the instruction text).

- Orient the strings according to their polarization - vertical, horizontal, diagonal, or circular (rounded).

- Form a capital letter with the pieces of string for each flavor. For instance, two medium-length vertical strings plus two short diagonal strings can only make an M.

- Order those letters by alphabetizing the flavors.

caption

Flavor	Strings	Letter
Antibottom	2 medium horizontal, 1 medium vertical	I
Anticharm	2 medium vertical, 2 short diagonal	M
Antidown	1 large circular	O
Antistrange	1 medium vertical, 1 medium circular	P
Antitop	2 medium-long diagonal, 1 short horizontal	A
Antiup	1 medium vertical, 1 medium-long circular	D
Bottom	1 large circular	O
Charm	1 medium horizontal, 1 medium vertical	T
Down	2 medium horizontal, 1 medium vertical	I
Strange	2 medium vertical, 1 medium-long diagonal	N
Top	1 medium vertical, 1 medium horizontal, 1 short horizontal	F
Up	1 large circular	O

If the players go to the website IMOPA.INFO, they find a page for the International Museum of Pretentious Art, which is the "epicenter" of the vibrations because of the art exhibit there that Catherine has altered (see the art history puzzle).

Budget

Minor

Credits

Erik Stuart

Manager

Erik

Hints

Part 1:

- It's probably important to find out where these are coming from! Using the map, can you identify the locations of the vibrations?

- There's a real sense of urgency here - as the instructions say, you may only have seconds to figure out what to do. In other words, after identifying the cities, the latitude seconds and longitude seconds are all you need.

- The longitude seconds have every even number from 2 to 56. That should suggest that they're used to order the data.

- The latitude seconds are all fairly small - between 1 and 11. That's suitable for use as an index.

- The correct cities are all on the provided map. Note that if the players don't use the map, they'll probably identify one of the coordinate pairs as Rome instead of Vatican.

- It's not essential to solving the puzzle, but all of these locations are very close to famous art museums (correct to degrees and minutes, at least).

Part 2:

- The instructions suggest that players should try to find the epicenter. Some of the longest strings are probably most useful for this, and using the longest string, Sydney, players may recognize that the epicenter is San Francisco (actually San Mateo, but it won't make much difference for solving the puzzle).

- Stress to players that the physical models (the pieces of string) are probably crucial - and they're physical models; they're intended to be picked up and used physically! There are 28 models of vibrations and 28 lat/long coordinate pairs - they should figure out which model (string) goes with which coordinate pair.

- "Grouped into flavors" is a key phrase - players should literally group the right strings together by flavor.

- Don't take "polarization" literally - it actually indicates _orientation_ of the string.

- Note that "circular" doesn't literally mean a FULL circle. It can mean a full circle (as with an O) or a half-circle (as with a D or P).

- No knowledge of particle physics is needed in this puzzle! Some teams may want to order by something the mass of the quark that has the given flavor. There are no quarks here - there are just "vibrations", so some other order is needed (namely, alphabetical). Also, there's no reason to put the "regular" flavors first followed by the anti-flavors - Antibottom is first in alphabetical order, followed by Anticharm, and so on.

- Players have heard of "IMOPA" earlier from a brochure for the "International Museum Of Pretentious Art", which also lists its website "imopa.info". Hopefully that will help self-confirm the answer as familiar when they find it.

Response to Correct Answer

"The International Museum of Pretentious Art? Let's see - you're right! If we focus our sensors there, it looks like that IS the epicenter of the vibrations! Perhaps Professor Chronos somehow managed to send us a message there! That would fit her because she loves art almost as much as science. And the place would be on her mind--she had just inspected it this morning!

But even if she did leave us a message while bouncing through time, it would probably be nearly impossible to find. She would have to make it so incredibly subtle that no one else throughout history would notice it--otherwise the timeline would be polluted. Well, you should go there anyway to check it out. All I can say is good luck. Email the lab when you're done.

To Do

• Playest version 2.