Rising From The Depths
Themed, pseudo-meta from Evan.
Rising From The Depths February 18, 2024
- hcbirker
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Fun puzzle, but "polyatomic atom"?? Evan, weren't you a chemistry major at Haverford? What's up with that clue for ION?
- Joe Ross
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- KayW
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Clever - thanks!
Contest Crosswords Combating Cancer (CCCC) is a bundle of 16 metapuzzles created to help raise money for cancer-related charities. It is available at CrosswordsForCancer.com.
- ebirnholz
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@damefox:
The thing I really want to address, though, is this:
Obviously it's possible to notice that "polyatomic atom" is contradictory even without a chemistry degree, but I wouldn't assume that just because I did get one a long time ago means that I should make fewer mistakes on chemistry-related clues than in other subjects. It's just an error that got by me. It happens.
This was a case where I psyched myself out. Ions are atoms with a net electric charge, so it's not uncommon to see "atom" in a definition for ION and just move on. I was originally going to use the clue [Monatomic or polyatomic particle] but even that might have been wrong, too, since a polyatomic ion consists of two or more atoms and so by definition maybe it isn't considered a single particle anyway. I ended up changing the wording online to "polyatomic unit" which I think is more accurate.
The thing I really want to address, though, is this:
Making a mistake on any clue is always frustrating for me, but I don't think an error like this is something I should consider more embarrassing because of what I studied in college. Yes, I was a chemistry major ... two decades ago. I wasn't great at it. I only did it because I was pre-med at the time and I liked organic chemistry (it was kinda like putting a puzzle together), and then ran into physical chemistry the year after I declared and despised it more than just about every class I took in college other than economics.
Obviously it's possible to notice that "polyatomic atom" is contradictory even without a chemistry degree, but I wouldn't assume that just because I did get one a long time ago means that I should make fewer mistakes on chemistry-related clues than in other subjects. It's just an error that got by me. It happens.
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Fair enough, it happens. And it was very clear what the answer needed to be regardless (which is not always the case when I make these errors - I published a puzzle on Crosshare the other day where I clued ABODE as if it were ADOBE and didn’t notice until a solver expressed justified confusion in the comments). I didn’t mean to detract from the praise of this puzzle, which I really enjoyed!ebirnholz wrote: ↑Mon Feb 19, 2024 12:23 am @damefox:
This was a case where I psyched myself out. Ions are atoms with a net electric charge, so it's not uncommon to see "atom" in a definition for ION and just move on. I was originally going to use the clue [Monatomic or polyatomic particle] but even that might have been wrong, too, since a polyatomic ion consists of two or more atoms and so by definition maybe it isn't considered a single particle anyway. I ended up changing the wording online to "polyatomic unit" which I think is more accurate.
The thing I really want to address, though, is this:
Making a mistake on any clue is always frustrating for me, but I don't think an error like this is something I should consider more embarrassing because of what I studied in college. Yes, I was a chemistry major ... two decades ago. I wasn't great at it. I only did it because I was pre-med at the time and I liked organic chemistry (it was kinda like putting a puzzle together), and then ran into physical chemistry the year after I declared and despised it more than just about every class I took in college other than economics.
Obviously it's possible to notice that "polyatomic atom" is contradictory even without a chemistry degree, but I wouldn't assume that just because I did get one a long time ago means that I should make fewer mistakes on chemistry-related clues than in other subjects. It's just an error that got by me. It happens.
- whimsy
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