In the film Paddington in Peru, the story centers around a mysterious string bracelet known as a ‘khipu’, used by the Incans to record numbers. These khipus were made up of knots on strings, which were then bundled together for various purposes like recording dates, taxes, and measurements. The knowledge of deciphering these khipus was lost after the Spanish conquest until a high school math teacher in Brooklyn managed to crack the code in 1912.
Today’s puzzle challenges you to decode a section of a khipu, similar to the one the math teacher deciphered, that is now housed in New York’s American Museum of Natural History. The khipu consists of vertical strings representing three-digit numbers, with sets of four strings grouped together by a fifth string above the horizontal cord. Symbols like ‘x’ and ‘o’ represent different types of knots on the strings.
To solve the puzzle, you need to study the first image provided, understand the pattern, and then apply it to the second image with a blank string marked by a ‘?’. By figuring out the correct knots to place on the blank string, you can uncover the solution to the mystery.
The solution to this puzzle will be revealed at 5 pm UK time, so stay tuned for that. In the meantime, let’s keep the discussion focused on Paddington or Peru without giving away any spoilers. This puzzle is taken from the book “The Language Lover’s Puzzle Book” and originally featured in the North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad.
For more mind-bending puzzles and conundrums, you can check out the author’s latest book “Think Twice: Solve the Puzzles That (Almost) Everyone Gets Wrong”. This book challenges your thinking and reasoning skills by presenting counter-intuitive puzzles that reveal our biases and flawed logic. To get your copy and support the author, visit guardianbookshop.com (or Puzzle Me Twice in the US).
If you have any interesting puzzles to share or suggest, feel free to email the author. Stay tuned for more intriguing puzzles every alternate Monday since 2015. Let’s keep our minds sharp and engaged with these fascinating challenges.
