Material Guys

by George Barany and Friends

This "mid-week level" science-themed puzzle was released in conjunction with a day-long symposium (pictorial hint to the right) in the Department of Chemistry on the campus of the University of Minnesota.  In fact, we were inspired to construct the puzzle in the middle of a morning lecture by Stephan Förster, and had the puzzle "good-to-go" in time for a celebratory evening banquet that was dedicated to (spoiler) 22-Across and 41-Across [and by the way, marks the second time they have appeared in the same puzzle within the past year, with Highest Honors being the earlier one].

Click here to view or download the puzzle in PDF format; here to download it as a puz file; here to download it as an ipuz file [requires the free Puzzazz app to solve]; here to solve the puzzle interactively (thanks to Jim Horne); here for the solution. We thank Jed Fisher, Todd Gross, and Michael Hanko for test solving the puzzle on extraordinarily short notice, and are grateful to Laura Seifert and Marc Hillmyer for organizing the aforementioned symposium and facilitating the puzzle's distribution. 

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

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

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