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Pie are squared

◆◆ · By woozy · Published 2023-11-09T02:57:49.259Z

Meta Prompt
The answer to the meta is what you will need to solve it.
This began as one of those challenges to self constructions. The answers rather obscure and at first I figured nobody (but Mikey G and Benchen) could possibly get it. But when I wrestled with how to do it, I think I included enough clues to figure out what to do (albeit why might be another issue). When you get the solution try and Google to see if it makes sense. It's fairly interesting (for specific values of interesting).
Anyway, think inside the box.
(BTW, the grid was surprisingly hard to fill)
Checking for previous play data...

Leaderboard (updated hourly)

  • benchen71 solved 2023-11-09T06:14:07.253Z
  • Pair O Ducks solved 2023-11-09T15:01:28.404Z
  • andeux solved 2023-11-09T18:39:56.756Z
  • kurtalert solved 2023-11-09T18:49:32.182Z
  • Hector solved 2023-11-09T23:59:34.778Z
  • Darrell solved 2023-11-15T05:53:13.619Z

Comments

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  • benchen71 11:27 · 2023-11-09T06:15:26.380Z
    Tricky, indeed! But you did leave enough clues. I have to say I was incredibly confused by 61D at first. But it does all make sense in the end. :-)
    • Pair O Ducks 9:54 · 2023-11-09T15:03:46.781Z
      Nice one, woozy! You left enough clues that even this non-mathematician could solve (ok, to be fair, there's a lot of mathematicians in my family and I grew up hearing lots of complicated math discussions around the dinner table). And I learned some new facts along the way!
      • woozy constructor · 2023-11-09T16:39:48.851Z
        Okay, the answer is "The Taxi-Cab Metric". 1A and 52A make it clear one needs to draw a circle that is eight squares across but how does one do that on a square grid where the squares are approximate and how many squares do we use?
        The key is 37D and 49A. A knight's L shaped path is 3 units. But the distance in a straight line is the square root of 5 (remember the Pythagorean Theorem). 37D says this is okay there is more than one way to consider different. So what if we drew a "circle" using not a straight line length as "distance", but a knight like path as distance.
        1A says to start at the center of the grid and collect all the squares that are 4 (half of the diameter) away from the center. Being 4 away can means going in a line for some distance and then turning and going in another for a total of 4 squares. This way our "circle" becomes a square diamond of 16 squares that spell THE TAXI CAB METRIC.
        The taxi cab metric is the name of this way of measuring distance. If you ask a taxi driver the distance she needs to drive between to points she counts the blocks in one direction and the other, as she can't drive in a straight line. Martin Gardner once joked that the solves the old "squaring a circle" problem. Observing pi = 2 is my joke. (I'm apparently not as pithy as Martin Gardner.)
        • kurtalert 🤓8:41 · 2023-11-09T18:51:15.411Z
          Hard one! Thanks woozy!
          • Hector 🤓14:41 · 2023-11-10T00:00:36.541Z
            Fun and interesting; thanks!
            Play today's daily mini crossword
            1A
            Definition: The set of all points a specific given distance from a given center
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            49
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            51
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            56
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            58
            59
            60
            61
            62
            63
            64
            65
            Across
            1. 1A
              Definition: The set of all points a specific given distance from a given center
            2. 7A
              Because pi is irrational, it is impossible to "------ the 1A". Do it anyway
            3. 13A
              Make it big on social media
            4. 14A
              Social practices and conventions
            5. 16A
              Organism's morphology
            6. 17A
              Hoffman/Cruise flick
            7. 18A
              -.-.-: The Extraterrestrial Nasty. Video release re-titling of 1967 Night Fright. (You can find weird stuff on Wikipedia disambiguation pages)
            8. 19A
              Mt. Shasta for one; Mt. Rainier is another. (There's a whole range of them)
            9. 21A
              Australian video games and computer animation school founded in 1996
            10. 22A
              Resort lake on the California/Nevada border
            11. 24A
              Whereas pi is irr., and 22/7 is rat., 2 is this
            12. 25A
              Small plug used to stop the vent of a cask
            13. 27A
              Suffix forming nouns of action, condition, etc.
            14. 28A
              Large farm for raising horses, beef cattle, or sheep
            15. 30A
              Male ant
            16. 31A
              English physicist (1642-1726) who expanded upon the works of G. Galilei and J. Kepler
            17. 33A
              Exhibitors of caution
            18. 35A
              English cathedral city
            19. 36A
              What? It doesn't stand for "little red train"?
            20. 37A
              Dept. that oversees the running and organization of these types of puzzles?
            21. 41A
              Actress and singer Carroll who had the title role in Julia
            22. 45A
              Virtual roofing material in Cyber-space. ("Do you sometimes have trouble finding the right words to fill in a grid?" "Sometimes? How about 50D time!")
            23. 46A
              New York borough known for its cheer
            24. 48A
              Cock-_____; trendy mixed breed dog. (If you think that's a bad clue... just be grateful)
            25. 49A
              The distance of a knight's path in chess. (The answer is not the square root of five... not with my way of measuring distances)
            26. 51A
              Protagonist of Leon's novel Exodus. Portrayed in the film by Paul.
            27. 52A
              A possible diameter for a 1A. (Which means the "specific given distance" in clue 1A is half this number)
            28. 53A
              Three letter animal meaning SNITCH
            29. 54A
              The internal organs
            30. 57A
              Souverain de France. (Babar l'éléphant en était un et c'est là que j'ai entendu ce mot pour la première fois).
            31. 58A
              Fictional software company in the movie "Office Space"
            32. 60A
              Recording of one's animal companion
            33. 62A
              Obsolete verb meaning to concur; it's similar to the word we more commonly use but it uses the Latin prefix meaning "with" rather than the Latin prefix meaning "to". The noun embodiment of this word in still very much in use particularly as a political body
            34. 63A
              Maybe what Wilber Post could be said to be; or maybe something really depressing on the internet
            35. 64A
              "Would you like a floral neckwear?" "A ---? ---, I would"
            36. 65A
              Automatons
            Down
            1. 1D
              Have within
            2. 2D
              Walter Scott's chivalric romance
            3. 3D
              Private University in Henrietta, New York with courtyard called the "Infinity 8D" (not sure how one would measure that distance)
            4. 4D
              "Time in a Bottle" singer
            5. 5D
              Nash's One-L priest
            6. 6D
              "They told me to take a street-car named Desire, and transfer to one called Cemeteries, and ride six blocks and get off at ------- Fields"
            7. 7D
              Lessen an itch
            8. 8D
              Open area on a campus. (I tried to come up with a university that had a round one of these. That'd make for a funny oxymoronic clue. But there are some searches Google isn't good at. If anyone knows of a campus that has a round one of these let me know, and I may update this clue)
            9. 9D
              Group selfies
            10. 10D
              Sydney flagship television station of the Seven Network in Australia. (I love Wikipedia...)
            11. 11D
              Lettuce with a heart
            12. 12D
              Software for sending out missives
            13. 13D
              "Gary Joseph ------ (/ˈ---/, ----; born August 19, 1958), is an American former third baseman in Major League Baseball for the Minnesota Twins (1981–1990), California Angels (1991–1993), Kansas City Royals (1993–1995), St. Louis Cardinals (1996–1998), Chicago Cubs (1998–1999) and Boston Red Sox (2000). " (Yeah, when it comes to sports clues, I'm just going to phone it in.)
            14. 15D
              Shows contempt
            15. 20D
              Mark Thompson's broadcast station
            16. 23D
              Fall Out Boy song "From now ---- enemies"
            17. 26D
              Asian noodle dish created in the thirties as an attempt at nation-building
            18. 28D
              Visible light acronym
            19. 29D
              Coiling spiral
            20. 32D
              Liturgy in the Roman Missal of the Catholic Church codified in 1570 and published thereafter with amendments up to 1962 (Did I ever mentioned Wikipedia can be useful)
            21. 34D
              Notable period
            22. 37D
              Mathematical concept of distances between points. The most well-known of these is the Euclidean one where distance is measured by considering straight lines between two points. But that is not the only way to define or calculate "distance".
            23. 38D
              Oldest known sedative and one of the most widely consumed psycho-active drugs
            24. 39D
              Open faced sandwich (not a fork spear for spreading roofing goo)
            25. 40D
              Wrecks; destroys
            26. 41D
              River to the Black Sea.
            27. 42D
              Monetary gift for students or teacher to encourage higher than grade level academics
            28. 43D
              What a person down on his luck may have
            29. 44D
              Category for the lowest priced rides on Lyft
            30. 47D
              To Milton this was a killer whale; to Baum (with a slight change of spelling) it is a four legged featherless bird with a propeller on its tail; but most probably know it from the Morgoth corrupted elves the Tolkein wrote about.
            31. 50D
              Each without exception
            32. 52D
              Consume a doctor who specializes in pregnancy. ("So how many convoluted entries do you allow yourself in a grid?" "As many as it #@!^ takes.")
            33. 55D
              A frozen treat (that is more useful as an egress from difficult crossword grids than as a refreshment)
            34. 56D
              Start over again
            35. 59D
              --- Friday's. A restaurant chain I've never been in but which as saved many a crossword construction
            36. 61D
              A 1A's circumference divided by its diameter is this rational number. (Not only rational but an integer. Don't believe me? Do the calculation yourself!)
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