Molecular Crossword Puzzle

by George Barany and Michael Shteyman

This 7x7 puzzle, with an original, rather unusual format, was distributed to the students of an organic chemistry class that I was teaching, as the students were turning in their final exams in December 2005. We thank Jed Fisher and Lloyd Fricker for their astute beta testing of the puzzle.

Click here to view or download the puzzle in PDF format and here to download it as a puz file; here to download it as an ipuz file [requires the free Puzzazz app to solve]. For a more detailed presentation, including the answer, click here. NOTE: The latter link is still under construction.

If you want to tell others about this particular page, refer them to http://tinyurl.com/2005finalpuz

More puzzles here (all) and here (science).

E-mail barany@umn.edu to be added to a bcc distribution list.

Instructions:

The "alphabet" to fill in this puzzle consists of the one-letter or two-letter symbols from the Periodic Table of the Elements.

Part of your challenge, once you have worked out each clue answer, is to decide how to parse it to fit into the 7x7 grid. For example, the word "bathes" can be parsed as BA-TH-ES (atomic numbers 56-90-99), B-AT-HE-S (5-85-2-16), or B-AT-H-ES (5-85-1-99)