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…room number 30. “What a beautiful door…the others are so plain,” said one.
“It’s meant to influence our decision,” said another.
“Perhaps this has been done so we will not choose this door,” said the thoughtful one.
They wanted to know what the letters meant. Obviously they meant something, and I said so.
“Yes, but…why ‘O’ and ‘U’? What special significance can they have for us?”
The more confused they became, the more I enjoyed it. No matter how many times I’ve been through this I’m always fascinated.
Leaving the room and all that it contained behind us, we entered…
- Images and text copyright 1985 by Christopher Manson
used with permission. [Purchase MAZE from Amazon]
Room Type: PATH Doors: 5 15 26 34 42
Solution Summary: [COLLECTION CURATED BY WHITE Raven. SEE COMMENTS FOR ADDITIONAL SOLUTION PROPOSALS.]
● The correct door is 42. [Credit: Unknown - during the 1985 contest.]
● The part of the Riddle of the Path in this room is “you” derived from the text “Why “O” “U”? Why/O/U = Y/O/U [Credit: Unknown - prior to 1990.]
● Anagrams point to all three incorrect doors. The sign IF NO EVE can be rearranged to say ONE FIVE (one&five=15) but it is pointing at room 5. [Credit: Beth Kinder] “ONE FIVE” can also mean “there is one five” meaning “5″ and thus points to both 15 and 5. [Credit: David G | White Raven] The watch with a hour hand pointing to the “F” which is leaning against a fake tree can be read as “tree” and “F-hour.” (We know it is the hour hand because the longer minute hand is on the floor next to the watch.) Moving the “H” from “hour” to the word “tree” the words read as “three” and “four” – door 34 is another of the incorrect doors. [Credit: Owen Hammer] Perhaps, reinforcing this, the last letter of the ABCDEFGH sequence (the H) is the letter which must be moved to make the anagram work.
● The text (and the decoration in the illustration) draws attention to door 34, and there are arrows pointing to 5 and 15. The non-indicated door is 42, which is correct. [Independent Credit: Kyle Stedman | Beq S.]
● The “IF NO EVE” and apple tree recall the story of Adam and Eve from the book of Genesis. The hand on the clock laying on the ground looks like a male symbol, combined with the “IF NO EVE” suggests “Adam”. Thus in front of each wrong door is a reference to Genesis: 34=apple tree, 5=eve, 15=male/Adam. [Credit: Maze Podcast 06]
● The F on the watch indicates the number 6, the watch and the “times” in the text indicates multiplication, the watch points to the letter “F”, in the text are 7 occurrences of the letter “F”. 6 x 7 = 42 the number of the correct door. [Credit: vewatkin]
● The items in the middle of the room form a simple equation. The watch has letters instead of numbers suggesting alphanumeric substitution. The hand of the watch points to the F which equals 6 in alphanumeric substitution. [Independent Credit: Beelzebibble | White Raven] The other hand of the watch is on the floor pointing at door 15. If we put the two hands together this equals 21. [Independent Credit: Mantis | White Raven] The large watch leaning against the flat tree suggests “times” which is reinforced by the word “times” appearing in the text. [Independent Credit: Beelzebibble | White Raven] The tree is not a real tree but a two-sided (or two dimensional) cut out of a tree. [Independent Credit: Bertrand | White Raven] If you times (multiply) the watch (21) by the two-sided tree (2) this equals 42, the number of the correct door. Watch hand 6 + watch hand 15 * flat tree 2 = 42. [Credit: White Raven][Credit with a hint: Mantis] Additional support is lent by the IF NO EVE sign. If there is no Eve then it is just Adam which sounds identical to Add’em. Suggesting addition. [Independent Credit: Janice | MAZECAST Visitors in Podcast 06] Also IF NO EVE then the apple would not have been taken at all. Suggesting we ignore the apples. [Credit: White Raven] Further, in the Genesis story the taking of the apple is a sin – this also suggests we ignore the apples. [Independent Credit: Aria | White Raven]
The text contains only 4 words with ‘O’ and ‘U’ in them,
and 2 ‘spaced out’ appearences, as they are displayed with the door inbetween.
So, 4 and 2 -> 42
thoughtful
Obviously
‘O’ and ‘U’
for us
confused
through
Three letters F = 6, 0 = 15, U = 21 “Add em”
Add them = 42
It’s fruit from the true of knowledge. If there’s “No Eve” to tempt Adam then he remains naive.
And the fruit of knowledge is fake so it offers false wisdom.
And the clock is broken making it not a reliable source of information.
Unsure if this all tracks.
This is one of the few puzzles in the book we have a pretty good understanding of–the assemblage of objects in the center of the room indicates “F HOUR TREE,” which is an anagram of THREE FOUR.
That doesn’t mean that the associations you cite aren’t there, though. Certainly, the IF NO EVE anagram (ONE FIVE) will create associations with the tree here, and possibly with religious language in the next room, and the devil imagery in the previous room. It may be that one of the key ways that Manson distracts from the solution to a puzzle is by inserting elements into the room that associate with the puzzle along a different axis than the solution.
Reading your comment again, I realize you may have already understood all that–you were just suggesting a reason for why we don’t go the way the puzzle is indicating.
That’s fair enough too–the Eden theme and the discussion of door 34′s elegance speak to the idea of avoiding temptation. I think there’s a broader theme of “silence” in the book that suggests we don’t want to go the way that the clues point, but it’s not clear how far we can take that, or how many rooms are meant to suggest this to us.
(Room 1 makes the importance of silence explicit. Room 26 uses literal devils as clues. And perhaps this room highlights the danger of temptation. I’m not sure whether any other rooms along the path suggest this principle, and I’m not sure how many of them even follow it.)
There are exactly 42 words in the quotes in the text.
That’s probably a good illustration of the dangers of unrestricted arithmetical solutions: you can always find something to count or multiply or combine to get the number you want to get.
I noted a solution listed above, about counting F in the text and then multiplying by the etc etc, and even though that was motivated by specific symbols in the room, it was still nonsense that only worked out by coincidence.
(I only count 41 words in the quotes, incidentally, but I don’t think it matters very much which of us is correct in our counting.)
The text says “Leaving the room and all that IT contained behind us, we entered…”.
If you examine the room I only found 10 fruITs and 3 exITs. Then, it means that the children left 10 fruits, 3 exits and the room 30 behind. -> They left 43 behind.
¿What is the number before 43? You got it right, 42. Which is the right answer. Kind of trickie this one.
¿Can you find you find any other item that contains IT in the room? ¿Maybe in the text? I think it may be a correct answer involving both story and image and with word-puzzles that Manson loves that much.
The letter ornaments are vowels. 42 (fortytwo) is the only number to only contain the ornament vowels.
fortytwo (O, O)
thirtyfour (I, O, U)
five (I, E)
fifteen (I, E, E)
Another way to get 2 from the tree, there are 10 apples and 5 branches (representing division). [Although it is a bit hard to tell if I have this right... the picture at the top might have 6 branches, but the picture in the middle appears to have 5.]