The Da Vinci Code Quest on Google |
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On Monday evening, April 17, 2006, I noticed a new entry on the Official Google Blog called "Can you crack the code?". It announced a contest built around solving puzzles relating to the book and upcoming movie "The Da Vinci Code".
The puzzles for the first phase are being released one per day for 24 days. As an avid puzzle solver, I was instantly hooked. I will describe below some of my thoughts as I solve the puzzles.
I was at home when I first learned of the contest. I live in a remote area and only have dialup for my Internet access. Needless to say, things did not go well. I never was able to download the first puzzle.
I tried again on Tuesday morning from work. Much better.
The puzzle was to place 4 sets of 4 symbols into a 4-by-4 grid such that each row, column and outlined region contained one each of the four symbols. A couple of the symbols were pre-placed.
My first attempt was flawless. Probably took less than two minutes. But then my IE browser up and died!
My second attempt took a little longer but I was still done in under 3 minutes.
On completing the puzzle, a question was asked: "Please name the symbol on Robert Langdon (pictured at left)."
The answer was "blade".
This puzzle was also fairly easy to solve and I was able to do so in just under two minutes. It involved moving some cloud-like debris that was hiding some text.
On clearing the "particles", the following question was asked: "Name the symbol on Manuel Aringarosa, pictured at left.".
The answer was "Greek cross".
Even with a high-speed internet connection, I had trouble with this puzzle. The progress bar went all the way to the right and then nothing happened. After about a minute, I hit reload and the puzzle loaded ok.
This puzzle was different than the previous two in that there really wasn't a puzzle to solve. There were three questions.
For the first question we were told to search for Robert Langdon on Google Video and to watch a short video for a specified clue. It was easy to tell when the clue was being shown but I had trouble even in pausing the video to know what I was looking at. But the question also had a link that gave a much more direct clue. But alas, I had no idea what the symbol was called. With further help from Google, I found a website that displayed a variety of religious symbols. Using the information on that page, I realized the answer was "Fleur de Lis".
The second question involved the picture on the obverse of the Italian one-euro coin. On doing a quick Google search, I found the answer from Wikipedia. The answer to the second question was "Vitruvian Man".
The third and final question was straightforward. The equation to be solved was to find n such that 26n=11,881,376. The answer was n=5.
With this puzzle, seven pieces of art had to be arranged on a wall. Again, pretty easy. I had the art work arranged in under 3 minutes.
Note that it helps to place the larger pieces of art work first.
After doing the puzzle, the following question was asked: "The symbol shown on Sophie Neveu (pictured at left) is called what?".
The answer was "Chalice".
For this puzzle, one had to find the correct sequence of chess moves leading to a checkmate. But each move was controlled by a multiple-choice question with four answers to choose from. No understanding of chess was really required.
My first question was "What is the spiked belt that Silas wears called?". The choices were (1) The Discipline, (2) A cilice, (3) A martinet, or (4) A clef de voute. The answer was (2).
My second question was "What are the second, third, and fourth leading members of the Priory of SIon called?". The choices were (1) The Elite, (2) Senechaux, (3) Entered Apprentice, or (4) Adepts. With the help from a Google search and Wikipedia, I found the answer to be (2).
My third question was "The engraved tablet that is supposed to reveal the hiding place of the Holy Grail is called the ...". The choices were (1) Keystone, (2) Meonia Stone, (3) Tabula rasa, or (4) Rosetta Stone. For this question, I determined the answer simply by figuring out what remaining chess move would cause a checkmate. The answer was (1).
The challenge was to assemble a jigsaw puzzle of an aerial photograph and then identify the location.
The jigsaw puzzle contained 16 pieces and was 4 by 4. It was easy to locate the corner and edge pieces, especially those with the writing at the bottom. I had the puzzle assembled in under a minute.
At the bottom of the image was the text "© 2005 Google - Imagery © 2005 State of New Jersey, Bluesky, Sanborn".
For those that didn't know that this was New York City (see Google Maps), a Google search reveals that Bluesky is a company that provides aerial photos of New York.
Many thanks to those who have contributed through the blog and via email!
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Updated on October 12, 2007 |
Displayed on November 20, 2008
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