A very fine puzzle with a good mix of nice clues and fresh entries. It wasn’t overly tough, but I did have to skip around a good bit to get enough crosses going to crack it open. I’m embarrassed to say that I tried gas before FAD.
@Marshall Walthew I'll confess to that same attempt, but not for long: it escaped!
@Marshall Walthew I had GAS and then LAW
@Marshall Walthew I also had GAS for far too long
Solid puzzle and a great Friday. Tricky at first but perseverance paid off.
@Selective Walrus hear hear, one of those where at the end of a quick first pass I had quite little, and then answers started coming and things took shape. Fun one in the end.
"National Velvet" is a pony tale. (Sorry for horsing around!)
@Mike You are the mane attraction around here.
@Mike What do the studios do with those kind of books? They shoot them, don't they?
@Mike It behooved you to do that.
@Mike You have JUMPed to a conclusion. Velvet was the young girl who won The Pie (piebald horse--not a pony) and then rode him to victory in the Grand National steeplechase. All fiction, but a thrill for many a pre-teen/early teen girl.
@Mike That’s okay. It’s all about her riding habit. 🌼☮️
This was a great Friday. I really struggled with it, in a good way. I really didn’t think I was gonna finish, until I did. After reading constructor notes, now I know why. It was accepted two years ago. And finally published. I really got stuck on 7 down. “Just okay. In modern lingo.” I had meh until I finally realized it was MID. 4 across “it’ll pass!” You don’t know how much I wanted gas instead of FAD. Great cluing all the way around. I really earned my gold today. Friday off days past. Thank you Rafael.
@Weak lol. I should have known reading the comments posted before mine would all claim “too easy”. Oh well. It was quite tough for me!
@Weak I’m not sure two years from submission to publication is such an unusual occurrence these days, actually.
My turn to wonder why some thought this was very easy, because for me it was probably above average. I did have GAS before FAD and then CASE before FUSE. I’m embarrassed as a pediatrician how long it took me to get VAX. MEH before MID, PIOTR before PYOTR, IRS before TAX. COFFEE MUG before TRAVEL MUG, and also wondered whether that was a misdirection and a tumbler was some kind of BUG.So maybe all those bad guesses held me up a bit. On reflection maybe it wasn’t so hard after all, but I thought it was a nice mix of some misdirections and ambiguous clues, and IMINAWE of Rafael’s grid. If rings=TOLLS then are the wedding rings your former wives held on to EXTOLS? Asking for Mike.
@SP I, too, was concerned that I was going to be unable to solve it most of the way through. So many clues that I just didn't really have any good initial ideas. They came later, gradually. I got a big leg up by getting UPSANDDOWNS without a cross. I rarely do that. I would say Average is a reasonable difficult estimate.
@SP I struggled with the SE corner but I still solved the whole thing in Wednesday evening time 🤷🏽 That dad joke at the end though... 🤦🏾
@SP The upper left and much else were gimmes for me - first guesses were all right. I thought maybe I was just smart or lucky, but confirmed with XWStats that it was just an easier puzzle, uncharacteristic for this constructor and probably due to the G.E. (what all the cool kids now call the Great Easening). So fetch. :)
In other news: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/30/government-map-mislabels-african-countries?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other" target="_blank">https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/30/government-map-mislabels-african-countries?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other</a>
@Andrzej OMG this is humiliating.
@Andrzej We elected a nincompoop who surrounds himself with like-minded sycophants. We owe the entire world a yuge apology.
@Andrzej Hey. The country of Africa is really confusing! Honestly I saw a you tube I hope was fake. A college woman was asked to name any country other than the United States. "Africa" was all she could come up with. She also asked "How was I supposed to know that?" when asked how many weeks are in a year. It's just so depressing.
@Andrzej But the up side is that it is now widely known that OpenAI produced that map.
@Andrzej We actually DO have some careful and educated people in the United States -- people who would check multiple times to make sure something like this wouldn't happen -- they're just not in the current government of the United States. We apologize for this embarrassing mistake and I imagine we will be apologizing to the world for a very, very, very long time.
Notes found scribbled in other people’s margins: “Pierre is such a SMARTYPANTS” “SO WHAT!?” “We’re supposed to believe he has a proof? I CAN’T EVEN.”
"Peter" is not PYOTR in Russian. It's Пётр, which transcribes to Petr. "PYOTR" is how you write down the name in English to (roughly) arrive at the Russian pronunciation, but the English phonetic spelling is *not* Russian. This is yet another case of the NYT being inaccurate regarding Slavs and their languages. Some years ago the grid featured the French/English SACHA as supposedly the Slavic spelling of the name that's actually written down as SASHA or SASZA (also Saszo/Sasze/Sasho/Sasze) by Slavic people.
@Andrzej I don't know, dude. You might be being a little pedyantic here. I don't think it's an example of "inaccuracy" about Slavs and their languages so much as one of a billion examples of how English has historically and poorly transliterated words from languages as diverse as Chinese to Hindi and from Zulu to Arabic. It's not a you thing, it's an us thing.
@Andrzej But the clue says "Pierre", not "Peter". Does that change anything? I found that confusing, too.
@Andrzej The fill in the grid is written in the English alphabet. So you're not going to get Пётр any more than you'll get François or Łodz or שרה. It's coincidental that SASZA, the Slavic letters used to represent /Sasha/, also all resemble English letters. But SZ doesn't equal /sh/ in English and, if the goal is to transliterate the sound from another language, then Sasha is correct.
@Andrzej While I don’t feel the crossword puzzle creators or editors are intentionally misrepresenting other languages, it can be a sticking point. I have another nit to pick when it comes to language inaccuracies: to describe anything in ASL by only the hand shape is ridiculous. Any hand shape is used for countless signs.
@Andrzej et alia I don't know where to put this: in such circumstances (and with blessed little help frm crossings) I just try various concoctions until some of the attempted entries seem to stick. Otherwise, one could wind up all sweaty and unsettled, and it's just too darned hot to over-exert in that way. Plenty of other stuff to get all exercised about... like permanent DST.
@Andrzej There oughta be a word for "hits too close to personal domain knowledge to judge in a general audience context". It happens to all of us when something (movie depiction, crossword clue, etc.) violates our in depth knowledge of a niche. You know what I mean, "nobody would use a #45 Corminius bolt on that size asparagus farming rig, c'mon, ruins the suspension of disbelief in the Kansas space armada scene".
@Andrzej Pyotr was a gimme. It's how I saw it, pronounced it, and accepted it, in dozens of translated Russian stories and novels. You're working a NY Times puzzle, not teaching a class or correcting a manuscript. I think we're good with it.
Note to self- if anyone ever offers a plate of yum khai mod daeng, politely decline. Absolutely lovely puzz, as always Mr. Musa.
Riddle-rich sparkling cluing Time and time again I was stumped by a clue, only to get it from crosses and realize it was absolutely fair – and clever! Example: [Make one]. There I was, thinking, “Make one WHAT?!?!” Until the intended meaning hit me with a sweet bang. Sparkling answer set too. It just felt like things were popping all over the place – SERENA SLAM! UPS AND DOWNS! ALL SMILES! ANT EGG! I CAN’T EVEN! – even that little out-of-left-field clue for MARGINS. And look at that sweet stack of I CAN’T EVEN, SMARTY PANTS, and OPERA BOX. Pop! Pop! Pop! My brain was happily working hard untangling clues but this never felt like a grind. What it felt like was a quality Friday, filled with zing, just what I want on this day. You rule, Rafael – that’s what I was thinking when I left the box today. Bravo and thank you!
Thanks for the great questions! So fun to give you all a peek behind the Pips and Midi curtain. I appreciate all the dedicated solvers (and posters!). Stay tuned for future Games Team Q&As. Have a great weekend! 🍪 🍪 🍪 🧩 🧩 🧩 ⬛️ ⬜️
Wow, that went by faster than any Friday NYT I can remember. Fun, but over too soon.
Curious about how Midi Crossword puzzles are made? Interested in learning more about Pips? Today at 1p.m. E.D.T., I’ll be answering the questions you submit in this thread. Leave a reply to **this comment** with your question and pop back in later for my Q&A. I’ll try to answer as many as I can get to. Talk to ya'll soon! 👇
@Ian Livengood Will you discuss the question of "easification"?
@Ian Livengood I really enjoy Pips. Rodolfo Kurchan is a crafty constructor, love his creativity.
@Ian Livengood Hi, Ian I have a few questions about the Midi. How are Midi puzzles created by non-Times affiliated constructors solicited? What are constuctors paid? Who decides on animation?
@Ian Livengood loving Pips so far! Was wondering if at one point it's planned to introduce streaks for Pips?
@Ian Livengood Having a lot of fun with Pips, other than dragging dominoes from the bottom of the screen! Just curious if there is always a forced solution to the Hard Pips or if guessing and evaluating lines is necessary in some cases.
@Ian Livengood Will Pips be getting an archive? Always feel sad when I miss a day.
@Ian Livengood What was the inspiration for Pips? Will the NYT be adding more logic puzzles to its arsenal?
@Ian Livengood congratulations on nearly a year of Pips! I love how there are multiple puzzles of varying difficulty each day and how each one (especially Rodolfo's hard puzzles) challenge my thinking. Are there any plans to introduce statistics or badges for Pips? My friends and I have a Pips league where we keep track of our times and the 🍪s we earn. We have so much fun with it, it would be fantastic to let others compare their times and 🍪s directly on the app!
@Ian Livengood Hey Ian - any good books you've read recently? How do you know when a theme idea isn't grand enough for a 15x15/21x21, but know it will work for the midi?
@Ian Livengood Hi, Thank you for Pips, Though I don’t solve daily. Sometimes, I stay with a challenging puzzle but when the clock strikes midnight, it goes poof. Can you PLEASE give slower solvers a chance to finish? Thanks again!
@Ian Livengood Sometimes on Pips we are given a tile set that is sorted. Other times it appears random. How do you decide when to give us a sorted set?
@Ian Livengood will you ever do the hard pips and have Rodolfo do the easy!!
@Ian Livengood What about acrostics? I know there's an archive of them but I'm almost finished with that. Will they ever again be available like the Mini, the Midi, Wordle, and the Crossword that I do daily?
This was for me a truly gorgeous puzzle with lots of fun fill. XANADU and ANTEGGS and I learned about the SERENASLAM? Such a lovely one, Rafael.
Biggest disappointment: That SERENAS was already filled in before I had a chance to figure out the delightful SERENA SLAM on my own. Hardest answer for me: The deviously clued AMENDMENT -- which of course I assumed to be about money. Write-over that mucked up that section of the puzzle for me: TOris before TOLLS for "rings". Kealoa of the day: Would it be EXTOLS or EXALTS? And one horrible Singular-of-Convenience: SNEAKER. Do that and you'll be limping around the office on Casual Friday. Or as I like to say, not an "option". BTW, I don't know what AERIAL YOGA is and I don't want to know. It sounds like one of the more demanding, uncomfortable and perhaps dangerous examples of physical exertion. Other than SNEAKER, which simply needed to be clued like a singular, this to me was the perfect Friday themeless in terms of difficulty level (lots of thinking but no suffering); some nifty clues; and some lively fill. Fun to solve.
@Nancy "Tori" is already plural, unless it's a nickname for Victoria; the singular is "torus"; "toris" doesn't exist.
@Nancy I agree about the SNEAKER issue. I was sure it couldn't be that since that only works for a person with one foot. Oh well, otherwise a good challenge, and since I have never even tried to make a crossword puzzle I really don't feel like I can complain, at least not too much. 🤪
@Nancy I honestly don't get the objection. A sneaker is part of casual Friday options. It's no more out of place than would be chopstick for eating utensil.
@Nancy We should solve as a team. AMENDMENT was one of the few answers I got correctly on the first pass. I'm not a tennis fan, so I didn't know SERENASLAM. I got SLAM from the crosses but had nothing going across the other end and kept trying to stretch out an alternative like grandeSLAM.
This is my first Friday crossword gold star! Took me a little under an hour (as in 59 minutes). I enjoyed this grid very much!
57A Cuisine with tom kha kai This translates to “spicy coconut soup with egg.” Most of the Thai food eating world prefers “tom kha gai,” which is the standard chicken version. ไม่เป็นไรครับ
Great Friday puzzle! Well done to the creator and editor! Difficult without becoming too obscure, vague, or ambiguous. Something we don't see that often recently! (And nothing too US-centric for us foreigners 🎉.)
Another puzzle above my pay grade. Seems like they've all been getting tougher recently. No big deal - that's just me. And, a puzzle find today: A Sunday from May 2, 2001 by Dan Schoenholz with the title: "Initial Impressions." Some theme clue and answer examples: "C-Span?" COVEREDBRIDGE "G-Force?" GERMANARMY "G-Flat?" GARDENAPARTMENT "E-Bond?" ELMERSGLUE And there were more. Here's that link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=5/2/2021&h=29d" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=5/2/2021&h=29d</a> Hasta manana ....
The only time I can envision myself eating insects, larvae or their eggs is in survival mode and even then I'd have to question how badly I want to live!
@Frank I agree. I've heard that some people actually eat snails.
@Frank , never say never! 🤣 I wonder if that ingredient is even mentioned in the menu description? You could feasibly eat it and never know. Years ago I was at a Mariners game with west coast friends. They wanted me to try the fried crickets served at the park. I was ambivalent but willing. But alas, it was too early in the season and that stand wasn't open yet. Maybe someday!
@Frank Agree. This failed the breakfast test for me, LOL
I'm just a bill, yes I'm only a bill. and I'm sitting here on Capitol Hill. Wow, remember when budgets were passed in regular order, with AMENDMENTs proposed, and solutions worked out in committee? Yeah, me neither. Nice clue for 13D though.
@Grant I'm old enough to remember that on PBS "Washington Week in Review" they'd talk about how senators would bash each other on the Senate floor, but deals were made in the coat room, where they relaxed and were friendly with each other. Those days are gone forever, I'm afraid.
A nit to pick - SNEAKER is incorrect as shoes come in pairs making them plural when worn together like one would on casual Friday. Unless wearing just a sneaker is a new fad that'll pass.
@Your Fired presumably you could wear one sneaker - and also another sneaker?
@Your Fired Agree. No one says, "It's Friday. I'm going to wear my sneaker." And yes, I am making a FUSS about that.
@Your Fired Correct, and seconded. Sneakers is a single article of clothing, like jeans.
@Your Fired On a VERY casual Friday one could wear a sneaker and a loafer. Or a sandal and a pump. Or just one Chuck. That's how casual.
@Your Fired The clue says "option," which I take as a type of shoe. It's just a little loose perhaps to deceive the solver. Puzzles are supposed to be puzzling.
ANT EGGS! Who knew? Reachable, enjoyable & just tough enough Friday. Nice way to start the day.
Ah, Mr. Musa! I get a little frisson of excitement when I see his name. It means I'm going to have to work for it, and work I did. It felt like the old pencil and paper days to me, with more back and forth between across and down than I commonly do in the app. And it paid off with a very satisfactory solve. I do enjoy a puzzle where I fill in very little on my first pass, and this one didn't disappoint. But once I got a few toeholds it was smooth and pleasant sailing. Bring on the weekend! I'm going to a glassblowing class tomorrow and very much looking forward to trying something new.
Fun but very easy! A personal best of 23 minutes for a Friday.
@VN I didn't think it was very easy, and I finished in 20 minutes, which is well above my personal best for a Friday. (and there are a lot of folks here who solve much more quickly than I do!) Which goes to show that the experience of solving puzzles is highly individual and subjective. A puzzle solved quickly is not necessarily easy--it may require considerable, but rapid, application of the little grey cells.
Not too difficult, but enjoyable. I thought the cluing was fresh - it had a style that felt a bit unique to me though I can’t put my finger on why. I laughed at XANADU crossing KAMA SUTRA because I remembered reading Coleridge’s poem back in high school English *cough*ahmenty*cough* years ago, and my teacher explaining to the class that it was about the journey into a woman’s vagina. Fun core memory to unlock!
@Wendy What the... Senior year literature was a lot tamer at Briarcliff HS in DeKalb County, GA. Also, I don't think that's where we encountered XANADU, the stately dome. I CAN'T EVEN....
@Wendy I wasn't aware Freudians had worked their "magic" on the poem, but it makes sense that they would.
@Wendy Xanadu brings to mind the Olivia Newton John musical from the 80s (and Gene Kelly’s last film). Was certainly not aware of the psychological implications of the poem, and now I can’t unsee it. Thanks a lot!
@Wendy Well, that puts "dining on honeydew" in a completely different light. To be honest, I'm more conversant with the Rush song than the original poem.
The elephant on the throne of my mind palace: Can someone splain me how "Went hell for leather" = TORE? I've never met a Musa grid I didn't really enjoy.. If setters belonged to schools like philosophers did in Ancient Greece, I'd say he's a star product of the Weintraubians.
@Matt That is a very, very old Americanism. "Hell bent for leather" used to be a way of saying "going as fast as you can go". And to say "He tore out of the parking lot", is that he sped out of the parking lot. I bet I patronized you with the previous paragraph. Sorry about that.
@Matt I've always thought that it described someone dashing for a horse (saddle leather and reins) to flee or chase. I assume that it evolved but rapid motion is involved. I don't think it applies to reaching for a holster but I could be wrong.
Bravo, Mr. Musa! That was a chunky, spicy puzzle to kick off my Friday! For me, the cluing struck the perfect balance between “what the…?” and “oh…that!” Y’all have a lovely weekend and be kind.
A short walk down the halls of the history of mathematics. Fermat's famous "Last Theorem" states that the equation (a^n + b^n = c^n) has no whole number solutions for a, b, and c when the power n is greater than 2. (When n=2, there are infinite solutions, each called a Pythagorean triplet, such as [3,4,5] or [5,12,13].) He wrote in his copy of Diophantus's "Arithmetica", "I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this proposition that this MARGIN is too narrow to contain." [N.B. the singular "MARGIN".] No one has ever found his "marvelous proof". The theorem was proven by Andrew Wiles in 1994, but no one would call this proof "a truly marvelous proof", except for the fact that it was a proof that had been sought for centuries.
That's a nice summary for people who didn't read the article to which Sean provided a link in the Wordplay column: <a href="https://mathworld.wolfram.com/FermatsLastTheorem.html" target="_blank">https://mathworld.wolfram.com/FermatsLastTheorem.html</a>
Bonus trivia: In his play "Arcadia", the tutor, Septimus Hodge, asks his student, the young math prodigy, Thomasina Coverly, to find a proof for the theorem. She fails, alas, and concludes that Fermat's marginal note was a joke that he was playing on all future mathematicians. She may be right. It's worth noting that when "Arcadia" debuted in 1993, the theorem had not yet been proved. If you haven't seen or read Stoppard's play, I can't encourage you strongly enough to do so. It is certainly one of the greatest theatrical pieces of the last 50 years! <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cp-BEOkq6M" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cp-BEOkq6M</a>
I wonder how many ant eggs go into yum khai mod daeng. And do they crack them and throw away the shells or do you just eat the whole thing? Sounds gritty.
@Down_Home I may nominate this for Comment of the Year.
Oh, and one more puzzle find - a rather amazing one by Cathy Millhauser from Sunday, August 20, 1995 with the title: "From Stove to Votes." The theme answer clues started with "Start of a verse" and then continued from there. Some examples (in order) SUFFRAGISTSOFLONGAGO PAVEDWOMENSWAYTOPOLLS NOWECANDECIDETOSHAPE NOTONLYROLLSBUTROLES And the other theme answer in the middle of the puzzle: NINETEENTHAMENDMENT Here's that link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=8/20/1995&h=68a" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=8/20/1995&h=68a</a> ....
@Rich in Atlanta Oh, and one more puzzle find. A Tuesday from March 19, 2019 by Daniel Larsen. The theme answers (straightforwardly clued) in order, with the notable sections in caps: easyasABC mosDEF weiGHIn dJKhaled fiLMNoir backuPQb pRSTunt UVWave XYZaffair Here's that link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=3/19/2019&h=18a" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=3/19/2019&h=18a</a> .....
poem made from words in today’s puzzle a/ the world tripping with joy is the measurement the distance the index of the something closed shaking twists in the sex of this highly casual friday when all the silent secured years in lockers of fate d/ attend congratulation in one assenting chorus of mind-logic friendship blown into a/ imax amens
Really liked CAESURA. It was totally new to me so thanks to the constructor and editors for being accommodating with the crosses. I looked up the pronunciation and was pleasantly surprised.I was expecting something like say-zer-a but it's more like suh-zhur-a(?). Feel free to correct me. Seems like it would make a lovely, "poetic" girl's name, but I don't remember ever seeing it used for that.
"In couplets, one line often makes a point Which hinges on its bending, like a joint; The sentence makes that line break into two. Here's a CAESURA: see what it can do. (And here's a gentler one, whose pause, more slight, Waves its two hands, and makes what's left sound right.)"-- --The great American poet John Hollander wrote a handbook on verse entitled *Rhyme's Reason*, in which he explains verse forms through self-referential examples. (Hollander makes a distinction between "verse," which is form, and "poetry," which concerns content, rhetorical devices included.) *** In Classical poetry, the most distinctive use of the caesura is in elegiac couplets, which are usually described as a six-ffot line followed by a five foot line, but might be better thought of as a six-foot line followed by two two-and-a-half-foot lines. Here's an example in English, written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, when he wasn't hanging around in Xanadu: "In the hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column; In the pentameter, aye falling back in melody." Both JH and STC do a good point in describing the effect the device has on the reader, I think.
@Bill That is so cool! Thanks. I'm going to have to take a look for "Rhyme's Reason"
One of my most successful Fridays, given that I reveal or look up clues that are totally American (WES, ATL) and often - slang eg MID and YAY ME, never heard of them. Then I forget that SHOT is US for vaccination, and not jab or jag (that's in Scotland). Also, I think of a TARTLET as very small tart, like a pastel de nata. My son runs marathons so GEL was easy; FUSE and TOLL are nice. Overall, very enjoyable.
@Jane Wheelaghan I usually understand them all eventually, and I was able to fill it in from the crossing letters, but I'm still not getting "FUSE" for "Make one" (I kept trying to make FUSS fit). Can someone expain?
My favorite kind of solve--on an airplane.
@DIVAS IVLIVS When I have a long flight, I download an entire week from the archive, so I can keep myself amused (if I'm not asleep, which is my preferred state while flying).
Really admire: 1. Where to be above all the drama? / OPERABOX - Simple, highly-accessible wordplay clue combined with a solid Scrabble-y answer. This combination is a cut above and suited to any day of the week. It borders on elegant. 2. Silent type / MIME - No "?" at the end of the clue helped to make this shine. It needed to function as a "quiet" whole and it did.
@Kelly Browder 2. And “mute” didn’t work.
@Kelly Browder Re “silent type”, I foolishly clung to “MUTE” for far too long…
It seems, from all the usual internet sources, that Пётр is Romanized in common systems as Pyotr. But also Pëtr, Pjotr, Piotr, and Petr could work. The English Peter seems to be Cyrillized as Питер, and Pete is Пит. The French Pierre Пьер. The Spanish Pedro Педро. The Apostle is Апостол Пётр. Maybe Jesus used the Aramaic name כיפא, Kepha Romanized, Кифа Cyrillized, to rename שמעון , Shimon Romanized, Шимон Cyrillized, as his Rock. Rockin’ the Pointless Details, with my Rock, Hudson, and my Keefer, Sutherland. Mr Monk will thank me later.
This was a solid Friday puzzle, I thought. I was surprised I finished pretty much exactly 20% under my average time (which puts me on the nose with the median solver, according to XWStats)—surprised, since until I got the star I felt as if the puzzle were quite challenging. I got misled in a couple places since I entered an answer I was certain about only to figure out I was wrong when the crossing fills made no sense…”Meh” instead of MID at 7D; “Calls” instead of TOLLS at 23D. So, thank you to Rafael Musa for a good start to the solving weekend. Your two-year wait may have been hard for you but it was worth it for this solver.
49 Down has a transliteration error. In Devanagari, it is शिव, and in IAST it is śiva. Since the New York Times does not use diacritical marks, it would be better to write it simply as shiva.
@msk I’ve always seen it transliterated as Shiva but figured this was a variation
SP The Times xwords have used both Siva and Shiva, depending on what the puzzle needs, going way back. I only learned (and remembered!) SIVA from a puzzle fairly recently. And Shiva, of course, can also be clued to the Jewish mourning ritual.
@msk Precisely because the puzzle does not use diacritics, it can be SIVA in the puzzle. For shure.
Well, thank you, @msk. Your snit made me look up "IAST," which was a new term for me. At the external links at the bottom of the Wikipedia article on IAST was one for Lexilogos online multilingual keyboard, and I have now bookmarked. Now I can easily type not only Śiva (Sanskrit IAST), but also Şıva (Turkish), and even 𐌔𐌉𐌘𐌀 (Etruscan)! YAY ME!
I guess I'm adding to the chorus. This was tough but fair. I really enjoyed it.
I feel like "part of Fermat's copy" should be MARGIN and not MARGINS.
@Benjy I suppose that depends on whether it was in one or more MARGINS. As far as I can tell you are correct about this nit. I guess you could parse it as his copy had a lot of MARGINS, and he wrote his note there (even if it was only in one margin) but it is a stretch despite being a great piece of trivia (and also probably easy to guess even if you haven’t heard of it).
@Benjy Yeah, you're probably right to a certain degree -- but not for integers greater than 2.
Yes, Fermat's famous marginal note stated that he had a wonderful proof of what is usually called Fermat's Last Theorem, but that the margin (singular) did not have enough room to contain it. The theorem was finally proved in 1994 by Andrew Wiles, and most mathematicians doubt that Fermat's claimed proof was actually valid: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermat%27s_Last_Theorem" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermat%27s_Last_Theorem</a> . But of course the book Fermat wrote this in had more than one margin.
Excellent fill by the constructor done in by some bizarre Tuesday level cluing choices by the editors. I genuinely look forward to end of weeks crosswords each week and almost feel cheated when I finish a Friday in under 7 minutes (not trying to gloat, just feeling a bit annoyed).
@Rahul Thanks for recommending The Speed Cubers. Really enjoyable documentary. The fill really was exceptional today. It's sad what they're doing with the clues. Don't worry about the commenters who don't know the difference between gloating and an expression of disappointment. Most of us know what you mean.