Bestselling Authors in 2019 AJ Jacobs traveled to Spain with his wife Julie and their two children to compete in the World Puzzle Championship.
Jacobs, an “immersion journalist”, frequently fights with his wife and sons to help them with their wacky professional projects. This time he also made him wear a special T-shirt. The witty Jacobs had his Team USA shirt printed with the motto “E Pluribus Unum Pictura” (Out of Many, One Picture).
It was part of the author’s research for his new book, “The Puzzler: One Man’s Quest to Solve the Most Baffling Puzzles Ever, from Crosswords to Jigsaw the Meaning of Life.”
And while the family may have reluctantly put on their shirts, once the action begins, Julie and the boys take the competition very seriously.
“I love that Julie, once in doubt, is fully committed. She’s trash-riddled. She’s also sworn not to take a bathroom break for a full eight hours. It’s the first time in 20 years.” That’s when we’ve been together,” writes Jacobs.
Given the incredibly stiff competition and relatively little preparation of the Jacobs family, the author was pleased with the result.
“My prayer has been answered. We didn’t finish last,” he writes.
Team USA finished second. Along the way, he picked up some great tips to do better next time, like sorting puzzle pieces by size instead of color, and cracking open plastic-wrapped puzzle boxes with a nail to avoid the rookie mistake of wasting precious time .
AJ Jacobs with wife and sons at the 2019 World Jigsaw Puzzle Championships in Spain. (manners)
This is the kind of fun in “The Puzzler”, in which, however, the author takes puzzles and the benefits of solving them very seriously.
In conversation with The Times of Israel, Jacobs argues that solving life’s challenges as a puzzle – rather than erasing problems – makes us better thinkers and even better people.
“It was natural for me to go into the world of puzzles,” Jacobs said in a recent interview from his home in New York.
The book became a real passion project because, as Jacobs wrote in his introduction, “I’ve been crazy about puzzles my whole life.”
The author inherited a special love of crosswords from his parents, who would solve them jointly through the mail.
“When my dad was in the military in Korea and my mom was out of state, he kept in touch by sending a puzzle back and forth, each filling in a clue or two per turn. Not the most efficient way, but definitely than is romantic,” writes Jacobs.
Writer AJ Jacobs makes his way through the Great Vermont Corn Maze in 2020 (courtesy)
Jacobs is a longtime practitioner of what is known as immersion or experimental journalism. For example, for “know-it-all” He spent 18 months reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica. For “The Year of Living According to the Bible” Secular Jacob tried to obey every rule and commandment in the Torah. For “Drop Dead Healthy” He worked to transform his “famous” body into shape and good health with the help of a team of expert medical consultants, researchers, nutritionists and trainers.
Accordingly, for “The Puzzler,” Jacobs spent the past two and a half years researching 17 different types of puzzles and solving countless examples. He may not have come far from the world’s expert on every type of puzzle, but his better than Rubik’s cubes, sudokus, riddles, mazes, chess problems, cryptics, anagrams, rebuses, Japanese puzzle boxes, and more. There is understanding.
Jacobs said that he wanted “The Puzzler”, like his other books, to mix elements of memoir, adventure, interesting characters, history, science, and self-help. But there will be something extra in this book.
“With that, I wanted to write a book that not only about puzzles, but that was also a book of puzzle,” he said.
The Springbok Puzzle Company published this Jackson Pollock puzzle in 1965, declaring it the hardest puzzle in the world. (Courtesy Strong, Rochester, NY)
To this end, he has included several historical examples of the puzzle as well as an entire section of the original puzzle created by the puzzle maestro. Greg PliskaFounder of Exaltation of Larks, a company that creates puzzle hunts for corporate and private clients.
“I initially thought about making the puzzles myself, but realized I needed a professional to do it. I learned by writing this book that making puzzles is a real art,” Jacobs said.
To make things more challenging, Jacobs and Pliska embedded a secret passcode in the book’s introduction that gives access to a contest made up of a series of puzzles on the book’s website (thepuzzlerbook.com),
A $10,000 prize has been claimed for being the first to solve the puzzle’s quest. However, puzzles remain available on the website for those who want to try their hand at them.
“Four hundred people reached the finals of the competition. Incredibly, [winner] Benji Nguyen and a group of his friends completed the final level in just over an hour,” wondered Jacobs.
Twisty puzzle designer Gregoire Pfenig with his record-breaking 33x33x33 cube (Daniel Roversi)
“The Puzzler” readers will enjoy Jacobs’ signature, comical recounts of his research and reporting, but they’ll also get a real brain workout, especially if they try to solve all of the puzzles in the book.
You may want to pace yourself, reading a chapter or two at a time. Those who want to skip over the solution can breeze through Jacobs’ fascinating prose and still get a sense of how each type of puzzle came to be and how it works—and of course, lots of bizarre facts. Learn.
Who doesn’t want to know that the possible arrangement of colored squares that make up a Rubik’s Cube is 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 (let’s round it to 43 quintillion)? Or that a Chinese teenager named Yusheng Du can solve this complicated puzzle in a record-holding 3.47 seconds? Or that the largest Twisty Cube is 33x33x33, which makes it much harder to solve using your feet, as has been done with some of the smaller cubes.
“My personal best is two minutes forty-eight seconds. not great. Like bench-pressing twenty-five pounds,” Jacobs writes.
The ‘Kryptos’ sculpture by artist Jim Sanborn was installed at CIA Headquarters in 1990. The letters of the artwork contain a secret code, which is yet to be fully deciphered, despite the intense efforts of people around the world. (Courtesy of Jim Sanborn and the CIA)
Jacobs always meets interesting individuals and communities while writing his books. He said he enjoyed getting to know puzzlers around the world, including people who have worked continuously since 1990 to crack working code. “Kryptos” Statue by artist Jim Sanborn installed at CIA Headquarters.
Unlike most people who tried to decode crypto from photos and drawings, Jacobs got permission to see it in person. Upon hearing that the author was on his way to Langley, Virginia, Kryptos enthusiasts flooded him online with hints, tips, clues, and requests.
Although Jacobs was warmly welcomed in the esoteric community, he found its members to be sticklers for accuracy.
‘The Puzzler’ by AJ Jacobs (Crown)
“For example, when I posted the image I wanted [of a crossword] On my Twitter feed for the book’s cover, I received tons of comments saying, ‘It’s not a riddle!'” the author said.
It turns out that the crossword consisted of two big no-no’s: It was odd, and it contained two-letter words. Fortunately, there was time to fix the image before publication and avoid further uproar.
Jacobs said that of all his books, this was the longest he took to write it. He chalked it up to the Covid-19 pandemic, which halted or delayed some of his research trips. He had lots of unexpected family time, both good and bad for a writer trying to stick to a deadline. On the one hand, three teenage boys worked in the house, which did not make the working environment calmer. Jacobs, on the other hand, had a captive group to help him try out various puzzles.
At the end of his search, and after the lockdown restrictions were lifted, Jacobs ordered a custom generational puzzle from Dutch puzzle maker Oscar van Deventer to keep the momentum going … for an unimaginably long time.
Generational puzzles are just what they sound like – puzzles that are so difficult it takes generations to solve. The aptly named “Jacobs Ladder” tower-like puzzle ordered by the author requires turning a series of pegs to remove the metal rod. It would take 1.2 decillion moves to solve this. Jacobs can only hope that his great-grandchildren will love Riddle as much as he does.
As challenging as the puzzles may be, Jacobs claims that the certainty of their solutions can bring us comfort. The sense of flow that links the solver to the puzzle can lead to a transcendent spiritual experience. Who doesn’t want to feel like a dopamine hit?
AJ Jacobs and his son with a generational puzzle called the ‘Jacobs’ Ladder, designed by Oscar van Deventer. Solving the puzzle will take 1.2 decilian moves. (Julie Jacobs)
While each type of puzzle is unique, we can learn a lot from puzzles as a whole. Jacobs is adamant that the skills we use to solve puzzles can help us navigate our filthy worlds, along with the Platonic ideal of a single solution.
He suggested that this approach could be applied to tackle climate change, culture wars, AI security and pandemic preparedness, for example.
“In real life, eventually there may be many possible solutions to choose from, but puzzle-solving skills such as breaking things down into smaller pieces, or looking at things from all sides and opposite angles, can help us arrive at good choices. It is,” Jacobs said.
“It’s about the Jewish characteristic of asking a lot of questions,” he said.