From - Sun Nov 07 07:07:28 1999 Received: from smtp02.frontiernet.net (smtp02.frontiernet.net [209.130.129.211]) by mail.frontiernet.net (8.8.8a/8.8.8) with ESMTP id UAA42166 for ; Sun, 10 Oct 1999 20:22:14 -0400 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by smtp02.frontiernet.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id UAA542126 for ; Sun, 10 Oct 1999 20:22:13 -0400 Received: from RELAY1.BU.EDU(128.197.27.99) via SMTP by smtp02.frontiernet.net, id smtpdzv6P7a; Sun Oct 10 20:22:06 1999 Received: from 168.122.16.195 (DIP16-PPP-195.BU.EDU [168.122.16.195]) by relay1.bu.edu ((8.9.3.buoit.v1.0.ACS)/) with SMTP id UAA24946 for ; Sun, 10 Oct 1999 20:21:13 -0400 Message-ID: <38013133.31B5@bu.edu> Date: Sun, 10 Oct 1999 19:37:13 -0500 From: Lawrence Horsburgh Reply-To: sartre@bu.edu X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0 (Macintosh; I; PPC) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: jmb184@frontiernet.net Subject: Maze solutions Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-UIDL: 1dfeb1aa4a5a65deb6bbd5e45684c3c6 X-Mozilla-Status: 8003 Hi there, First of all, thank you very much for posting the various hints and solutions you've posted about the Maze book by Christopher Manson. In the past ten years, I've never found anyone who shared my interest in the book enough to help me sort through it. Second, you said "feedback, please," so I thought I'd share my reactions to the Maze puzzles: Like Chris McManus, I, too, discovered that a path could be found in less than sixteen steps. But the fact that it was so short combined with its use of unlabelled doors made me suspect it. When I saw that there was no path to 45 that didn't use unlabelled doors, I gave up -- either the path is half what they say it is, only eight steps (1 - 21 - 31 - 19 - 45 -- 19 -- 31 -- 21 -- 1) or it isn't possible at all. When I saw the hidden door in 29, I found the right path, but I could never find the riddle at 45. As a result of all this, I don't think that Chris' suggestion is meant to be taken. It's logical, and a good cartographer will figure out the identity of the "secret" doors, but I do think that they aren't meant to be options for a genuine solution. The constant injunction to not trust appearances, and to look at a problem from all sides, is not a command to go through unmarked doors, but a hint that room 29 needs to be looked at upside down. The ability to determine where the unmarked doors go is yet another red herring. Incidentally, I think the narrator's identity is a red herring as well, for three reasons: 1. The riddle and answer provided by Holt makes no reference to it, so it is a red herring in the strict sense that it doesn't help with the riddle of 45. 2. As Ian Finley's list indicates, a lot of the information is inconsistent, so it is difficult to get a coherent picture of the narrator. 3. Most of the time, the text itself is a red herring, not a part of the puzzle; that is, if you take it as a story. It supplies words and clues, but is not meant to tell a story with characters: as the correct solution involves going through room 4 twice, and hence making the text narrative repetitive and disrupting the suspension of disbelief, I think we are given evidence that the puzzles are largely visual, and that nothing the narrator says can be understood apart from the context of the main puzzle. Lesser puzzles about his curious remarks are meant to be evocative, but ultimately meaningless. In short, the narrator's identity is window-dressing, fun and interesting, but ultimately not a puzzle that can be solved. I'll check your pages periodically to see if more progress is made, and if I make any progress, I'll post it somewhere. Thanks again for solving a puzzle that I feared would never be solved, Lawrence Horsburgh