The Master Theorem: "members-only society of solvers"

Allison Kade says:

I'm not really sure what "normal" people do on Wednesday nights at midnight: Sleep? Have sex? Or, race against fellow nerds to earn point bonuses for solving online puzzles? When I say puzzle, I don't mean Sudoku or crosswords, but more James Bondian code-breaking fare at a website called The Master Theorem, a "members-only society of solvers."
Every week, there's a new puzzle, called a Theorem, on TMT (as devotees refer to The Master Theorem). To join, prospective members need to solve a given Theorem or be invited by a current member. The society is run by a mysterious figure known only as M, whom you can think of as a geeky version of Charlie from Charlie's Angels.
I first became involved with TMT back when I was an undergrad at Columbia. As a nerdy girl dreaming of secret societies that cared only about matters of the mind, it was paradise. TMT had it all: cryptic flyers with only a puzzle and a deadline. Induction ceremonies that involved approaching people hiding behind newspapers and nonchalantly telling them passphrases. An all-night puzzle hunt during which teams built bona fide devices out of breadboards and wires by following blueprints handed to them by "agents" stationed around campus.
So I'm sure you can imagine my glee when, years after exiting the ivory tower, M tapped me, my compatriot Shaun Salzberg, and a couple other senior members to help him launch TMT as a website. In his words, "We had a Dead Poets Society sort of thing going on for a while, but I don't make a great Robin Williams. For starters, I'm decidedly more badass." The new website, which launched just a month or two ago, is open to anyone with the perseverance to crack one of M's Theorems.
Once beyond the virtual curtain, members compete to solve additional mini-puzzles hidden throughout the website. In turn, they earn Seals, which are like web 2.0 badges. All the scores are ranked on an old-school high score list, with bonuses for solving each week's Theorem quickly. The new Theorem always goes up at midnight between Wednesday and Thursday, so a real web community has grown to wait up and see who can solve it first. The puzzles may seem a bit obscure in the beginning, but it's easy to catch on to M's style of puzzle-writing soon enough (and the help page has tips in the meantime).

The Master Theorem

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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Sijay

Jump in! This week’s just got posted.
Wish I’d solved it faster, it was definitely a *facepalm* moment.
Anonymous

It’s an ice cream cone! amirite?
tasteface

Probably not the simplest expressions:

(h^2+o^2)^(1/2)
((h^2+f^2)^(1/2))/2
(((h^2+f^2)/4)-c^2)^(1/2)
- Charles H.
  
  Or, using the hints as to the puzzle-writing style whereby you translate letters into numbers:
  
  H: 8
  F: 6
  C: 3
  
  Gives us:
  x1 = 17 = Q
  x2 = 5 = E
  x3 = 4 = D
  
  Q.E.D.
  - Charles H.
    
    (And, of course, O: 15 in the original puzzle — since I forgot that one.)
  - bklynchris
    
    omg….i want to have babies with you. Or whoever designed this puzzle. Man, all these comments and responses are most excellent.
Church

The society is run by a mysterious figure known only as M, whom you can think of as a geeky version of Charlie from Charlie’s Angels.

Or, you know, M.
- bklynchris
  
  o to the u to the ch
  
  ; )
Anonymous

x3 = h/2
c = f/2
noah django

well, as someone who needed heavy tutoring in the higher maths, but found geometry easy (albeit 21 years ago), I gave it a shot, and I think I got what tastyface got except I forgot the 1/2 power is the sq root, so my answers were even *more* inelegant. CharlesH is the smartypants ITT for sure.

and I googled “hypotenuse right triangle” since I forgot the pythagorean theorem :( It’s a miracle I remembered the word “hypotenuse.” I take solace in the fact that I dropped into the big bowl at my new local skatepark today. Kinda like *applied* geometry, y’know?

still, pretty fun; but I imagine TMT will be largely over my head.
sally599

OK, that was fun, thanks for sharing.
holtt

Spy vs. Spy
Bookburn

Oh god this is awesome. So, so awesome.

Boing Boing is the best thing that has ever happened to me.
MrWoods

Secret games with nefarious hosts. Reminds me of Oryx and Crake, allow me to paraprhase:

Euclid named the living angles, MaddEuclid names the dead ones. Do you want to play?

I for one hope this game ends better.
Anonymous

The best “puzzle” site I’ve ever come across is definitely mod-x.co.uk.

It’s not just random puzzles some guy thought up, but challenges based on real-world scenarios (and if you’re working in IT, it’ll probably teach you more about hacking – and how to protect against it – than any book or seminar); and all the while it feels more like an interactive piece of fiction than a mere puzzle site.
musveng

This is my first visit. Very nice!

I tried solving it as a straight geometry problem and was vexed by my inability to reduce the terms to something more accessible. And then, the three red “dashes” seemed out of place. . .until I read the help page and took a different “angle”.

Looking forward to future puzzles. . .
Anonymous

erata: there’s an even harder (and older) version of that: http://www.deathball.net/notpron/
jm

Pretty neat!

A nameless math cabal also used to write tricky/amusing problems onto index cards which they then slipped into “appropriate” campus library books.

Interestingly enough, there is a pretty good movie about a mathematical puzzle-solving society, its members and mysterious leader: Fermat’s Room.
Anonymous

That simple?
hicks

They should have, you know, jackets.
Anonymous

Ah, thanks Charles H. I was sitting there thinking “the puzzle seems flawed, x1 and o are not constrained by anything! What am I missing?” The ability to think outside the box, apparently.
John H.

I don’t know, isn’t this just really another version of the old Mensa-style snootiness?
Neuron

I’m not really sure what “normal” people do on Wednesday nights…

I made a graph of the elevation in my neighborhood (to walk around my block involves climbing > 400 feet and covering almost 2 miles).

I diagrammed a sentence.
Anonymous

M? , Professor Moriarty perhaps?
Anonymous

Interestingly enough, there is a pretty good movie about a mathematical puzzle-solving society, its members and mysterious leader: Fermat’s Room.

Almost an accurate review, except remove the words “pretty good” for accuracy. Not only was that a yawn of a thriller, it featured the oldest of chestnuts as its stump-the-audience math puzzles, and the ending made no sense at all.
Tim

Oh my gosh this is awesome! I want in!
erata

A few days ago, I got obsessed with a similar website: ouverture-facile. It is more geeky (and will involve using a bit of computer wizardry), but equally awesome. And it even has an english version now!
Check it out: http://www.ouverture-facile.com/start/rules.html
- Tim
  
  I remember that website from a year or two ago. Lots of HTML tricks in that one along with clever puzzles.
- Sork
  
  I enjoyed O-F, but unless it’s another trick it sadly stopped at 94. I found the french language an extra fun level of the puzzle solving. Thank you online translators. Though there were seldom much to translate.
  
  @#22: I played it until I hit the pay wall. Very sad. It’s not about the money, it’s about the user account. I only play anonymously, for my own pleasure and not for some fame wall.
  (New players shouldn’t be afraid, there are more free levels in notpron than all in O-F)
  - erata
    
    The french version of OF now has a “votre OF” (your OF) section where users submit additional puzzles. Some of them are excellent, and most do not require knowing much french (or any at all).
    
    I’ll check out notpron.