52 | New Scientist | 30 November 2019
The back pages Puzzles
Quick crossword #46 Set by Richard Smyth Quick quiz #30 Puzzle set by Zoe Mensch
#32 Rearranging books
Once a week, it is Jordie’s job at the library
to put books back in order on the shelves.This week, he finds that the 10-volume
encyclopedia has been mixed up in the
order shown above. He has to put them
back in order, and since the books are
heavy, he wants to move as few volumes
as possible.A move consists of taking a book off the
shelf and sliding the other books to the
side to make space, if necessary. What is
the smallest number of moves he needs
to make to rearrange the books in the
order one to 10 from left to right?Answer next week#31 Three hats
SolutionCassie can’t deduce the colour of her hat
from looking at the two in front of her, so
she says nothing. This silence tells Ariana
and Beverley that their hats are different
colours. Beverley can see a white hat in
front of her, so she says “black”. Ariana
then deduces that her hat is white.
Answers and the next cryptic crossword next week.Get in touch
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[email protected]Quick quiz #30
Answers1 Panthera pardus pardus,
Loxodonta africana, Diceros
bicornis, Syncerus caffer...
what is missing from the list?
2 When viewed from the
northern hemisphere, does
the moon appear to be the
same way up as it looks from
the southern hemisphere or
is it upside down?
3 Russia’s Lake Baikal is the
world’s deepest lake and its
largest freshwater lake by
volume. Which lake is second
on both of these lists?
4 What creature, when
discovered swimming off the
eastern coast of South Africa
in 1938, had been missing
for some 66 million years?
5 The five telescopes of the
High Energy Spectroscopic
System in Namibia
investigate which
phenomenon?Answers belowCryptic
Crossword #19
AnswersACROSS 1 Rice (Trice),
3 Dominant, 9 Thyroid, 10 Crest
(Rest), 11 Trust (Rust), 12 Mantle,
14 Rumble (Crumble),
16 Adhere, 19 Alight (Light),
21 Fling (Flint), 24 Turbo (Turbot),
25 Meatier (Metier), 26 Charming
(Harming), 27 Smew
DOWN 1 Rotatory, 2 Coypu,
4 Oedema, 5 Incan (Tin Can),
6 Areolae, 7 Tots (Cots),
8 Mortal (Moral), 13 Hedgerow,
15 Malaria, 17 Defeat (Defect),
18 Stamen, 20 Groom (Room),
22 Ilium, 23 Otic, the lion. Panthera leo 1Together with the Africanleopard, the African bushelephant, the black rhinocerosakes and the Cape buffalo, it me up the “Big Five” of African gamUpside down 2Lake Tanganyika in East 3Africa’s Great Rift ValleyThe coelacanth. The fish, 4previously known only fromfossils, was thought to havee extinct around the become the dinosaurs didtimic rays, specifically Cosm 5a raysm gamACROSS
1 Control ___ , reactor
core components (4)
3 Cancer-causing
substance (10)
10 Cryptid of North America (7)
11 Charles ___ , US
seismologist (7)
12 Animated sci-fi sitcom, first
broadcast in 1999 (8)
13 See 21 Down
16 Pewter or bronze, say (5)
17 Compound containing
an oxyanion of W (9)
18 Operation on the
small intestine (9)21 Formulating Online
Calculations in Algebraic
Language (5)
23 Royal ___ , honeybee
secretion (5)
24 Group of bonded atoms (8)
27 Japanese tech company,
founded in 1910 (7)
28 Human-like automaton (7)
29 Point on Earth’s surface
closest to a detonation (6,4)
30 US transport firm, founded
in 2009 (4)DOWN
1 Vitamin B₂ (10)
2 Not analogue (7)
4 The use of labour-saving
devices (10)
5 European Organization
for Nuclear Research (4)
6 Core of an atom (7)
7 1997 biopunk sci-fi film (7)
8 Standard; type (4)
9 ___ Canyon, supertanker
that ran aground in 1967 (6)14 Herbivorous dinosaur of
the order Ornithischia (10)
15 Giant salamander (10)
19 Type of synthesised
dance music (7)
20 Si (7)
21/13 Mathematics prize (6,5)
22 C (7)
25 Species of cormorant (4)
26 Effervesce (4)10 7 2 6 5 4 1 9 3 8A B C