Confession: I don’t like doing puzzles. Put a word search in front of me; I’ll find the left-to-right low-hanging fruit and abandon the project. I cannot solve a Rubik’s Cube without a manual. Half of my family gathers ’round a jigsaw puzzle and talks knowledgeably about something called shapes; I stay away unless they need a color consultant. (Looking for that grayish-purple smudge on a cat’s nose? I am here for you.)
And yet, somehow, our cover package on puzzles was my idea.
It helped that we found alumni who design all sorts of puzzles. Word-centric puzzles (Jeff Chen, ’93, MS ’94, Stanford’s most prolific New York Times crossword constructor). Jigsaw puzzles (Chris Wirth, ’90, whose Liberty Puzzles manufactures laser-cut, artisan, wooden jigsaws, and Maya Gupta, MS ’00, PhD ’03, who founded Artifact Puzzles after being inspired by Liberty’s wares). Experiential puzzles (Brent Holman, ’92, whose Edison Room at the San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts was once ranked the fifth-best escape room worldwide). For the record: That one sounds the most fun to me.
Kali’s and Sam’s stories reveal a subculture that is quintessentially Nerd Nation.
It also helped that I was aided and abetted by senior writer Sam Scott, whose longest NYT crossword-solving streak is 594, and staff writer Kali Shiloh, who is exactly the right person to round up seven Stanford students and observe every detail as they navigate an escape room.
Kali’s and Sam’s stories reveal a subculture that is quintessentially Nerd Nation. It’s intellectual yet playful, modern yet grounded in tradition. And in that sense, we’re all puzzlers. Take associate professor of biology Erin Mordecai, whose mathematical models predict where mosquitoes—humans’ deadliest predator, but also “cute” at the larval stage—will ferry disease in the future. Or Andy Dunn, MBA ’07, the former Bonobos CEO who is trying to figure out how to run a new start-up that facilitates platonic friendships while managing his bipolar disorder. Or the late Leonard Compagno, PhD ’79, who developed a shark taxonomy as a grad student that led him to consult on Jaws (a movie that turns 50 this year and only made you think sharks were humans’ deadliest predator). In these pages and beyond, you’ll find curious Stanford community members who are trying to puzzle out the mysteries of the world and apply them to real-life challenges.
Also, I got Wordle in two today. Just sayin’.
Kathy Zonana, ’93, JD ’96, is the editor of Stanford. Email her at kathyz@stanford.edu.
