{"id":15905,"date":"2016-07-06T05:27:09","date_gmt":"2016-07-06T09:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/?p=15905"},"modified":"2016-07-06T09:30:38","modified_gmt":"2016-07-06T13:30:38","slug":"brians-opaque-puzzle-answer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/brians-opaque-puzzle-answer\/","title":{"rendered":"Brian\u2019s Opaque Puzzle Answer."},"content":{"rendered":"

On 4 July 2016, I offered a puzzle to readers.<\/p>\n

I thought it was pretty easy. But, I’ve since concluded that I either missed my calling as the crafter of impossible puzzles or I should stick with straight-forward photographic tips.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure which.<\/p>\n

Ok, the whole post was the puzzle. In this \u00a0I offered a variety of clues, each of which\u2014when\u00a0deciphered\u2014should have produced a hint toward the correct answer.<\/p>\n

Perhaps to make this easier I should have written; \u2018what common theme of this post can be found in various elements within\u00a0the post.\u2019<\/p>\n

The first clue was the title: \u201cTracking the Light Reaches 1500!\u201d<\/p>\n

The second was in the time of the posting (not the normal time, but at 3 pm EST; 1500 hours).<\/p>\n

(I put in an \u2018FYI\u2019 to hint that the time zone was important.)<\/p>\n

Each photo also offered a clue (or clues):<\/p>\n

Conrail 9578 was a model SW1500 switcher rated at 1,500 horsepower. (I guess you just need to know that sort of thing, or look it up in a book?)<\/p>\n

I picked an SW1500 because the model number neatly matched the output (rather than say an F7, also rated at 1,500 hp).<\/p>\n

\"Conrail,
Conrail, September 1989. Exposed with a Leica M2 on Kodachrome 25.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Admittedly the final\u00a0photo’s clue wasn\u2019t especially obvious:\u00a0this photo shows the overhead catenary on the Chicago, South Shore & South Bend (In the caption, I describe the\u00a0railroad as the \u2018South Shore\u2019 along with the location \u00a0of the image). The clue was that the South Shore\u2019s wires are energized at 1,500 volts DC. (Sorry, the signal is just an attractive distraction).<\/p>\n

\"South
South Shore at sunset near South Bend, Indiana. October 1994.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’d mentioned that a one-word answer was all I was seeking; detailed explanations were optional.<\/p>\n

The answer is an even four-digit number, evenly divisible by 1, 3, 5 and 100.<\/p>\n

None of the answers from readers perfectly matched what I was aiming at, so \u00a0I\u2019ve decided to award the free book to the first answerer (who guessed in the form of a comment, as required by the rules) that\u00a0mentioned the correct number, which as it happens was also the first answer that I received.<\/p>\n

Thanks to all the readers who participated, and especially to\u00a0those readers who provided well-thought out responses that \u00a0produced answers that were\u00a0more clever than I sought!<\/p>\n

Tracking the Light doesn’t do Puzzles Everyday.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Incidentally, the puzzle behind the puzzle\u2014my elusive allusive meaning\u2014was that successful photography is like a puzzle: You have to put together a variety of pieces in the right order to make a picture, but kin to this puzzle, it is up to the photographer to pick which pieces to use.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On 4 July 2016, I offered a puzzle to readers. I thought it was pretty easy. But, I’ve since concluded that I either missed my calling as the crafter of impossible puzzles or I should stick with straight-forward photographic tips. I\u2019m not sure which. Ok, the whole post was the puzzle. In this \u00a0I offered … Continue reading Brian\u2019s Opaque Puzzle Answer.<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15886,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[],"tags":[3641,3648,7535,3647],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/South_Shore_at_Sunset_near_South_Bend_IN_Oct1994\u00a9Brian_Solomon_899508.jpg?fit=1643%2C2433","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BVuC-48x","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15905"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15905"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15929,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15905\/revisions\/15929"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}