The joyful, perplexing world of puzzle hunts | Alex Rosenthal

54,907 views ・ 2019-01-16

TED


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:12
It's 4am, you've been awake for forty hours,
0
12802
3396
00:16
when you unlock a puzzle containing this video
1
16222
3381
00:19
of some kind of dance-off between a chicken and a roller-skating beaver.
2
19627
4976
00:24
(Laughter)
3
24627
1524
00:26
The confusion and delight you're experiencing
4
26175
2287
00:28
is a typical moment at the MIT Mystery Hunt,
5
28486
3093
00:31
which is basically the Olympics meets Burning Man
6
31603
2341
00:33
for a specific type of nerd.
7
33968
1704
00:35
(Laughter)
8
35696
1001
00:36
Today, I'm going to take you inside this strange,
9
36721
2342
00:39
intellectually masochistic and incredibly joyful world.
10
39087
3291
00:42
But first, I have to explain what I mean when I say "puzzle."
11
42858
3285
00:46
A puzzle-hunt-style puzzle is a data set.
12
46715
3238
00:49
It can be a grid of letters, a sudoku, a video, an audio --
13
49977
4810
00:54
it can be anything that contains hidden information
14
54811
3026
00:57
that can eventually resolve into an answer that is a word or a phrase.
15
57861
4309
01:02
So, to give you an example,
16
62194
1320
01:03
this is a puzzle called "Master Pieces."
17
63538
2618
01:06
It consists of 10 images of LEGO people looking at piles of LEGOs.
18
66180
4841
01:11
And to save us some time, I'm going to explain what's going on here.
19
71370
3350
01:14
Each of the piles of LEGOs is a deconstructed work of art
20
74744
4405
01:19
in the style of a famous artist.
21
79173
1849
01:21
So, does anybody recognize the artist on the left?
22
81046
3154
01:24
They used a lot of red.
23
84641
1533
01:26
I heard "Rothko," yeah.
24
86865
1400
01:28
The second one?
25
88873
1151
01:30
(Audience) Mondrian.
26
90048
1151
01:31
Alex Rosenthal: Yeah, well done.
27
91223
1562
01:32
And the third one? This is the hardest one --
28
92809
2849
01:37
Yeah, Klimt, I heard it.
29
97404
1228
01:38
Well done, the color is the biggest clue there.
30
98950
3221
01:42
So the puzzle has various clues
31
102195
2665
01:44
that tell you what matters here are the artists,
32
104884
2249
01:47
not the specific works of art.
33
107157
1619
01:48
And what you need to do is then look at what you haven't used yet,
34
108800
3477
01:52
which is the number of LEGO people in each painting.
35
112301
2903
01:55
And you can count them
36
115228
1454
01:56
and then count into the artists' last names by the same number of letters.
37
116706
4030
02:00
So there's three people in front of the Rothko on the left,
38
120760
3166
02:03
so you take the third letter, which is a T.
39
123950
2659
02:06
There's only one in front of the Mondrian, so you take the first letter, M.
40
126633
3571
02:10
And there's three again in front of Klimt, so you take the third letter, I.
41
130228
3733
02:14
You do that for all 10 of the original artists
42
134419
2492
02:16
and put them in the order,
43
136935
1405
02:18
and you get the answer, which is "illuminate."
44
138364
2807
02:21
(Laughter)
45
141195
1868
02:23
Puzzles like this are about communicating an idea.
46
143600
2499
02:27
But where I'm trying to be as clear as possible for you now,
47
147211
2857
02:30
puzzles have to navigate the line between abstraction and clarity.
48
150092
3573
02:34
They have to be obtuse enough to make you work for it,
49
154601
3864
02:38
but elegant enough so you can get to the aha moment,
50
158489
2826
02:41
where everything clicks into place.
51
161339
1873
02:43
Puzzle solvers are junkies for this aha moment --
52
163546
2380
02:45
it feels like a brief high and an instant of pristine clarity.
53
165950
4378
02:51
And there's also a deeper fulfillment at play here,
54
171077
3608
02:54
which is that humans are innate problem-solvers.
55
174709
3138
02:57
That's why we love crosswords and escape rooms
56
177871
2817
03:00
and figuring out how to explore the bottom of the ocean.
57
180712
3367
03:04
Solving deviously difficult puzzles expands our minds in new directions,
58
184704
4564
03:09
and it also helps us come at problems from diverse perspectives.
59
189292
5223
03:15
These puzzles come in various puzzle hunts,
60
195927
2309
03:18
which come in various shapes and sizes.
61
198260
1889
03:20
There's one-hour ones designed for novices,
62
200173
2658
03:22
24-hour road rallies,
63
202855
1722
03:24
and the puzzle hunt of puzzle hunts, the MIT Mystery Hunt.
64
204601
3652
03:28
This is an event that takes place once a year
65
208753
2167
03:30
and has around 2,000 people descending on MIT's campus
66
210944
5388
03:36
and solving puzzles in teams that range from a single person to over 100.
67
216356
4448
03:41
My team has 60 people on it --
68
221190
2357
03:43
that includes a national crossword puzzle tournament champion,
69
223571
3920
03:47
a particle physicist, a composer,
70
227515
2673
03:50
an actual deep-sea explorer,
71
230212
2325
03:52
and me, feeling like "Mr. Bean goes to Bletchley Park."
72
232561
3365
03:55
(Laughter)
73
235950
2532
03:58
That's actually an apt comparison, because one year involved a puzzle
74
238506
3576
04:02
where you had to construct a working Enigma machine
75
242106
2789
04:04
out of pieces of cardboard.
76
244919
1637
04:06
(Laughter)
77
246580
2182
04:08
Each Mystery Hunt has a theme.
78
248786
1817
04:10
Past ones have included "The Matrix" and "Alice in Wonderland."
79
250627
3230
04:13
It's often pop culture- and literary-based themes.
80
253881
3804
04:18
And the goal is to find the coin
81
258057
2134
04:20
that's been hidden somewhere on MIT's campus.
82
260215
2794
04:23
And in order to get there, you have to solve around 150 puzzles
83
263033
3444
04:26
and do various events and challenges.
84
266501
2403
04:29
I had done this for about 10 years without ever dreaming of winning,
85
269353
3714
04:33
until January of 2016,
86
273091
2325
04:35
where 53 hours into a hunt whose theme is the movie "Inception,"
87
275440
4312
04:39
we haven't slept in days, so everything is hilarious ...
88
279776
3223
04:43
(Laughter)
89
283023
1184
04:44
The tables are covered in piles of papers, of our notes and completed puzzles.
90
284231
4918
04:49
The whiteboards are an unintelligible mess of three days' worth of insights.
91
289173
4033
04:53
And we're stuck on two puzzles.
92
293729
1611
04:55
If we could crack them, we would get into the endgame,
93
295364
3126
04:58
and after hours of work, in a magical moment,
94
298514
2539
05:01
they both fall within 10 seconds of each other,
95
301077
2579
05:03
and soon, we're on the final runaround,
96
303680
2079
05:05
a series of clues that will lead us to the coin,
97
305783
2977
05:08
and we're racing through the halls of MIT,
98
308784
2412
05:11
trying not to knock over or terrify tour groups,
99
311220
3322
05:14
when we realize we're not alone,
100
314566
1579
05:16
there's another team on the runaround as well,
101
316169
2288
05:18
and we don't know who's ahead.
102
318481
2037
05:20
So, we're a mess of anxiety,
103
320542
2662
05:23
anticipation, exhilaration and sleep deprivation,
104
323228
3079
05:26
when we arrive at the Alchemist,
105
326331
2254
05:28
a sculpture in which we find ...
106
328609
2294
05:31
this coin.
107
331910
1268
05:33
(Cheers)
108
333202
1155
05:34
Yeah.
109
334381
1152
05:35
(Applause)
110
335557
2104
05:37
And in claiming it, we win the MIT Mystery Hunt
111
337685
2422
05:40
by a tiny margin of five minutes.
112
340131
2491
05:43
What I didn't mention before
113
343506
1444
05:44
is that the prize for winning
114
344974
1397
05:46
is that you get to construct the whole hunt for the following year.
115
346395
3214
05:49
(Laughter)
116
349633
1738
05:51
The punishment for winning
117
351395
1255
05:52
is that you have to construct the whole hunt for the following year.
118
352674
4453
05:58
At the beginning of 2016, I had never constructed a puzzle before --
119
358080
3375
06:01
I had solved plenty of puzzles,
120
361479
1549
06:03
but constructing and solving are entirely different beasts.
121
363052
3319
06:06
But once again,
122
366395
1182
06:07
I was lucky to be on a team full of brilliant mentors and collaborators.
123
367601
3500
06:11
So, from a constructor's point of view,
124
371125
1928
06:13
a puzzle is where I have an idea,
125
373077
2476
06:15
and instead of telling you what it is,
126
375577
1850
06:17
I'm going to leave a trail of breadcrumbs so you can figure it out for yourself,
127
377451
3822
06:21
and have the joy and experience of the aha moment.
128
381297
2732
06:24
This is another way of looking at the aha moment.
129
384053
2802
06:26
And what's incredible to me is that this experience,
130
386879
2713
06:29
which is very emotional and kind of almost physical,
131
389616
2903
06:32
is something that can be carefully designed.
132
392543
2127
06:35
So, to show you what I mean,
133
395028
1682
06:36
this is a puzzle I co-constructed with my friend Matt Gruskin.
134
396734
3500
06:40
It's a text adventure,
135
400258
1724
06:42
which is the old-school adventure game format,
136
402006
2850
06:44
where you're exploring, going north, east, south and west,
137
404880
3308
06:48
picking up items and using them.
138
408212
2413
06:50
And you could get to the end of the game part,
139
410649
2182
06:52
but you won't have solved the puzzle.
140
412855
1802
06:54
In order to do so, you have to recognize a hidden layer of information,
141
414681
4095
06:58
and the easiest way of seeing it is by mapping the game out.
142
418800
2912
07:01
That looks something like this.
143
421736
1698
07:03
Does anybody recognize what this is?
144
423736
2400
07:07
Yeah, exactly.
145
427220
1539
07:08
This text adventure takes place within "Settlers of Catan."
146
428783
4028
07:13
Who here knows what "Settlers" is?
147
433220
1959
07:15
Nerds.
148
435887
1158
07:17
(Laughter)
149
437069
1857
07:18
If you don't know, "Settlers" is a board game
150
438950
2111
07:21
where you're competing against other people
151
441085
2040
07:23
to collect resources and use them to build structures.
152
443149
3134
07:26
And within the text adventure, we hid information in various ways,
153
446307
4842
07:31
with which you could reconstruct an entire game.
154
451173
2634
07:33
You could figure out the roads, the cities, the towns,
155
453831
2945
07:36
the resources, the numbers on the tiles, even the dice rolls.
156
456800
2930
07:39
You put all that information together and you could extract an answer
157
459754
3257
07:43
in a way that's too complicated to explain right now.
158
463035
2695
07:45
(Laughter)
159
465754
1532
07:47
But find me afterwards if you really want to know.
160
467310
2367
07:49
(Laughter)
161
469701
1034
07:50
But what this puzzle emphasized for me
162
470759
1937
07:52
is the value of perspective shifts in inspiring an aha.
163
472720
3413
07:56
So, in this puzzle,
164
476157
1166
07:57
you go from experiencing the world on the ground, as a character,
165
477347
3079
08:00
to looking down on it from above as if you're playing a board game,
166
480450
3165
08:03
and in that shift,
167
483639
1287
08:04
you completely reframe all the information you've been given.
168
484950
3051
08:09
The hardest part of construction for me is coming up with a great idea for an aha.
169
489260
4323
08:13
Fortunately, the world is a torrent of ideas and information.
170
493607
3825
08:17
I've seen fantastic puzzles constructed out of the waggle dances of bees,
171
497456
4510
08:21
and the remarkable coincidence that the 88 keys of a piano
172
501990
3778
08:25
can be perfectly mapped to the 88 constellations in the sky.
173
505792
3587
08:29
Once you find that out, you can't not construct the puzzle,
174
509403
3365
08:32
and it's going to be about having the solvers
175
512792
2190
08:35
make that connection in their own minds.
176
515006
1960
08:36
Whether you give them stars on a keyboard
177
516990
1977
08:38
or play the celestial music of the cosmos,
178
518991
2062
08:41
you're getting them there, one way or another.
179
521077
2167
08:43
Before long, you find yourself staring at a turtle,
180
523268
2396
08:45
and asking yourself, "Is this a puzzle?"
181
525688
2183
08:47
(Laughter)
182
527895
1642
08:49
And also, staring at a turtle and saying,
183
529561
1992
08:51
"I never appreciated what multitudes this contains in its shell alone."
184
531577
3529
08:55
This might be a familiar experience to you,
185
535640
2016
08:57
if you've ever been watching a TED Talk and asked yourself, "Is this a puzzle?"
186
537680
3754
09:01
(Laughter)
187
541458
1452
09:02
I'm not telling.
188
542934
1388
09:04
But what I will say
189
544346
1224
09:05
is that puzzles can be found in the most unexpected of places.
190
545594
3544
09:09
That brings us back to one of my favorite puzzles of all time,
191
549569
2921
09:12
which was constructed by Trip Payne.
192
552514
1735
09:14
And this time, I'm going to play it for you with the sound on,
193
554273
2937
09:17
so get ready to name that tune.
194
557234
1589
09:18
(Slowed-down mock clucking)
195
558847
2262
09:21
(Slowed-down mock clucking)
196
561974
2563
09:25
(Slowed-down mock clucking)
197
565117
6335
09:31
(Laughter)
198
571476
1150
09:32
Who knows what that is?
199
572650
1460
09:34
Yeah, "You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman."
200
574825
2174
09:37
(Laughter)
201
577023
4828
09:41
So you can identify that and seven other songs and clips,
202
581875
3357
09:45
and then look at the videos themselves for clues,
203
585256
2547
09:47
where the way that they are filmed and edited together
204
587827
3282
09:51
plus things like the cutaways to the panel of five people
205
591133
3063
09:54
sitting at a table,
206
594220
1254
09:55
which is reminiscent of a panel of judges,
207
595498
2452
09:57
all of this can suggest "reality competition show."
208
597974
3254
10:01
And either through internet research,
209
601252
1897
10:03
or from just recognizing this, you can get to the aha,
210
603173
3634
10:06
which is that these clips are shot-for-shot recreations
211
606831
3040
10:09
of lip-synch battles from "RuPaul's Drag Race."
212
609895
2484
10:12
(Laughter)
213
612403
2896
10:15
So, why do we do this?
214
615323
1619
10:16
(Laughter)
215
616966
2913
10:19
(Applause)
216
619903
3000
10:22
You tell me, I don't know.
217
622927
1595
10:24
So, first of all, it's really fun.
218
624546
2650
10:27
But I think it also improves our lives in various ways.
219
627220
3452
10:30
Being able to solve puzzles, when I'm confronted with a challenge,
220
630696
3461
10:34
has allowed me to explore it from multiple perspectives
221
634181
3151
10:37
before I lock in an approach.
222
637356
2062
10:39
Also, the process of solving is great training for working with a team,
223
639442
3992
10:43
knowing when to listen, when to share,
224
643458
2484
10:45
and how to recognize and celebrate insight
225
645966
2405
10:48
and being able to construct ahas is a very powerful tool.
226
648395
4254
10:52
Think of how powerful and exciting and convincing an idea is
227
652673
4834
10:57
that comes from your own mind,
228
657531
2166
10:59
where you make all the connections yourself.
229
659721
2420
11:03
So in January of 2017,
230
663094
2301
11:05
after tens of thousands of hours of work,
231
665419
4047
11:09
we finally run our Mystery Hunt.
232
669490
2103
11:11
And it's a different sort of satisfaction than the quick high of an aha moment.
233
671990
4563
11:16
Instead, it's the slow burn of saying something through perplexing abstraction,
234
676577
4691
11:21
yet being understood.
235
681292
1400
11:23
And when it was all over,
236
683085
1571
11:24
in our exhaustion, we turned to each other and the world, and we said,
237
684680
3311
11:28
"We're never doing this again. It's too much work.
238
688015
2419
11:30
It's really fun, but no more winning."
239
690821
2564
11:34
One year later, in January of 2018,
240
694109
3397
11:37
we won the MIT Mystery Hunt again.
241
697530
1985
11:39
(Laughter)
242
699539
1682
11:41
So, we're currently I don't know how many tens of thousands of hours of work in,
243
701245
3762
11:45
and we're two months out from the 2019 Hunt.
244
705031
2403
11:47
So, thank you for listening, I have to go write a puzzle.
245
707458
2693
11:50
(Laughter)
246
710175
1245
11:51
(Applause)
247
711444
2643
About this website

This site will introduce you to YouTube videos that are useful for learning English. You will see English lessons taught by top-notch teachers from around the world. Double-click on the English subtitles displayed on each video page to play the video from there. The subtitles scroll in sync with the video playback. If you have any comments or requests, please contact us using this contact form.

https://forms.gle/WvT1wiN1qDtmnspy7