Over the Moon

by George Barany and Ellen Ross

This "late-week difficulty" puzzle (17x18) celebrates a birth in a well-known American political family (pictoral hint to the right). After completing the puzzle (spoiler), learn more about all sorts of aspects by clicking here for our "midrash." Updated December 2014: Through the good offices of Judge Victor Fleming, our work came to the attention of one of his longtime personal friends. Click here for a letter in response, which critiques this puzzle. Also, this puzzle appeared in the November 2014 issue of Natural Selections, as accessed here, and my co-constructor blogged about "the blessed event" in her December 7, 2014 Letter from Elba.

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 Steve Bachman, Laszlo Denes, Brent Hartzell, and Martin Herbach for beta testing an earlier version (details in midrash) and making suggestions that were incorporated for revising the puzzle. Ralph Bunker solved the final version, as animated here, as did Todd Gross.

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

More puzzles here (all), here (current events), and here (tributes).

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