Sensational concept, with a theme that practically guarantees a terrific aha, with enough resistance to fully engage the brain, and yet, enough openings to make this thing gettable. What a build! The perfect up-and-to-the-right placement of the exponents. The long theme answers all symmetrical. Those long theme answers keep the mood light as well. NINE-ARMED BANDIT. WHOLE THREE YARDS. THANKS A TEN. Hah! And the little brilliant flashes. That clue for ADMAN, for instance – [One who might have perfect pitch]. Here’s an answer that’s shown up in Crosslandia about 100 times, but never before today clued with this angle. Plus, interesting tidbits, such as L. Frank Baum’s filing cabinet, or a state that has only three counties. Just a high-quality puzzle, made by a pro. So many lovely and impressive touches in this one, Tracy. It made for a splendid outing. Thank you!
@Lewis We should all have a Lewis in our life! I always appreciate your positivity and turn of phrase.--LH from NY
When the fans of exponents fell in love, they became a power couple. (I had a degree of fun at their wedding too: I ate Rice Krispie squares and cube steak.)
@Mike They could have also added celery roots for a fraction of the price
@Mike Warm up sum Manzanilla and add spices for mull tipples. Go for the best wine. It makes all the differentials.
@Mike Never heard of cube steak but it sounds like a square meal
@Mike I see you've entered another entry into your log today. Keep up the rhythm. (If you get stuck, call for an Euler.)
Finally 365 days of gold stars. No hints etc.
@LC That is quite an admirable accomplishment. I myself was laid low several times over the past year. I carry the minders of every puzzle that laid me down or cut me till I cried out, in my anger and my pain, "I am leaving, I am leaving..." Yet here I remain.
@LC, Woohoo! Congratulations on a full year! 🎉👏🏻🥂
@LC way to go! I'm working on my first complete calendar year with all puzzles solved. maybe someday I'll get all gold stars, but hard to imagine!
I can almost hear Deb Amlen now: “But they said there would be no math…” And I can hear Andrzej screaming all the way from Poland. Wow. A gem in so many ways. Extremely clever theme, brilliant execution, and a high degree of difficulty (see what I did there?) for the constructor and reasonably so for the solver. Expert fill especially for the limitations, and look at all that TOPFLIGHT accessory fill for the downs. And then some great care for clueing even for some of the common fill (letters from your folks? Amazing) Also loved “it’s off the wall”. Doesn’t get much better than this in my opinion. Thanks for the “WHENIM(sixty four)” call out, I just had my 64th birthday, thank you very much. TIL a new meaning for SCUD, also thank you very much. Just added a new Crosshare puzzle. It’s a tricky Thursday and another one that’s “off the wall”. Hope you enjoy! <a href="https://crosshare.org/crosswords/fWniZWiHwr48kpqPTLjv/get-into-shape" target="_blank">https://crosshare.org/crosswords/fWniZWiHwr48kpqPTLjv/get-into-shape</a>
@SP The puzzle on Crosshare is extremely clever and well worth any crossword lover's time.
@SP You scooped me on the Deb Amlen reference. I'm just glad she didn't have to review this puzzle.
@SP A few years ago my wife and I were both 64 as were a couple of friends. The 4 of us all went on holiday together and rented a cottage in the Isle of Wight. We had been planning it for years.
@SP Enjoyed it a lot! I, like others, was unsure how to enter the rebus, so I just punted when I got everything but the special squares.
@SP That's a great puzzle. I finished in about 45 minutes but I can't figure out how to handle the circles. S P O I L E R I filled in P..H... for each circle but it didn't do the trick.
@SP I tried to solve this Sunday puzzle but I didn't understand the theme (maybe if I knew what an exponent was in Polish things would be different, but I don't care enough to look it up), and the fill was beyond me. I found this even harder than the impossibly hard puzzles of yesterday and the day before - the combination of trivia, slang and misdirection was deadIy (I mean, misdirection on its own is great, but with the additional level of difficulty provided by factual knowledge and linguistic unknows it becomes an insurmountable obstacle for a solver like me). I'm not touching your grid 🤣
@SP Happy birthday! I just recently had my 64th as well
@SP I now have five of your Crosshare puzzles stacked up, waiting for me to go. I've completed only the first one you published. Alas, if I could only stop doomscrolling...
@SP Thanks everyone for trying the puzzle. Sorry about the frustration of finishing it, I added a bunch more alternate solutions based on your recommendations
@SP Great theme. And I love how the grid is bookended by a pair of 3-letter entries (1A and 66A) with such fun clues.
Didn’t much enjoy this. At all. Incredible concept ruined with too many naticky proper nouns/trivia. Crossing BAUM, MANZANILLA, LAHTI and LOLA is just one example. No puzzling through the clues will lead you to the solution. You either know the answers or you don’t. Solving via crosses can’t help you. This is, to me, what it feels like when crossword puzzles tip over into mere trivia and cease to be puzzles. I know many won’t agree with me. You might argue it’s possible to puzzle your way to LAH-TI as an answer… fair enough. But well, by the time I got there the puzzle had already exhausted me and not in the fun way I come here for. Trivia does have a role in crossword puzzles—solvers should have broad knowledge—but good editing can ensure it remains more of a puzzle than a quiz. Sadly this was just a quiz in many places. DONHO, ONEIL, OSAGE, MEARA is another spot. Just my two cents. And I didn’t even mention AVEr/AVOW… ok, bring on the hate for my comment.
No hate for your comment, Brett; just a bit of sadness. I'm pretty sure the editors thought most if not all solvers would recognize from the clue or after a few letters at least one of the crossing proper noun pairs you cite, so there would be no Naticks. I'm sorry that was not the case for you.
@Brett I'm with you on this one. The theme was delightful to me, and I needed no help before I had every theme answer. It was the rest of the fill that became frustrating, I needed lookups in the same spots you critique and also had AVer for too long.
@Brett You may be too young to know LAHTI, LOLA, DON HO, and MEARA. But BAUM should have been inferred from seeing O - Z. I think enough people are familiar with the Wizard of Oz and the name of its creator.
@Brett could not agree more. Way too much ultra-obscure trivia to be enjoyable. We get it, puzzle setter, you’re so very clever.
If you read and understand the clue for 116 Across, you will figure out that the first letter must be an L, so there is no Natick with LAHTI and LOLA. You don't need to know every proper noun; they can be puzzled out.
@Brett Manzanilla and Lahti was my personal natick; I had an E instead of an I, so I am bereft of a gold star for today.
@Brett I agree. I really liked the theme and had fun getting those ones, but after figuring it out had to deal the anticlimax of a lot of these pretty obscure and old-fashioned pop culture and celebrity references.
@Brett I agree. This was a very “you know it or you don’t” type of puzzle.
@Brett Totally fair take, but to offer a different perspective: I didn’t know any of those answers you called out (other than BAUM, which has been thoroughly drilled into my brain at this point), but still finished this puzzle significantly faster than my own Sunday average. To be fair, this was a puzzle where I felt like I might have been heading for a brutal flyspecking session, and I was pleasantly surprised to get the “good for you!” overlay when I entered the final letter — I did have a handful of “pencilled-in” entries at that point. But looking back, all the entries where I had a pencilled-in letter seem eminently solvable via a combination of crosses and inference. For instance, DONHO/ONEIL, LAHTI/LOLA, SCUD, and TARAWA are all 100% opaque trivia to me — they ring absolutely zero bells. However, SCUD and TARAWA were all covered by straightforward crosses; and while both DONHO/ONEIL and LAHTI/LOLA are tough, the shared letter in each case could be inferred with fairly high confidence without knowing any of the names. That is: what else could have possibly worked for the N in ONEIL or the L in LOLA?
@Brett This is an entirely valid perspective. Several of the answers are trivia and would probably be more recognizable to older folks (or more advanced solvers). I'm old and thoroughly enjoyed this one but am frequently stumped by modern slang and texting shortcuts IYKYK LOL
What a genius puzzle — amazing constructing, and really fun to solve! I loved it. :)
Loved it! A clever theme like this and I’m on cloud three. Thanks, Tracy. I hope there are PLENTY MORE where this came from.
I’ll let the neuroscientists correct me here but I’ve always considered number and word based puzzles as exercising different gobs of neurons so when those worlds collide… the result is so sweet. And for those folks wondering why anything to the zeroth (zeroeth?) power yields one here’s a quick explanation sans formulae: Let’s use 4 as our base and catalog what happens as we move from 4^1 to 4^2 (16) to 4^3 (64). Each time we bump the exponent up by one, we multiply by the base (4). Now let’s run the experiment in reverse… Each time we bump the exponent _down_ by one we _divide_ by the base. Therefore, moving from 4^1 to 4^0 must mean we divide 4 by 4 and *arrive at 1*. Note that this will happen regardless of the base you chose! Mathematicians love to do that whole generalization thing.
@Mishlev Great explanation, and much clearer than the one Dan and I tried to provide earlier in the comments!
@Mishlev Zeroeth?!!? I'm shooketh!!
@Mishlev Almost anything. Just not 0^0. Which is indeterminate. Cause 0 divided by 0 is indeterminate.
What a fun puzzle! It tweaked my Osage orange just the right amount to see the exponents. This is a good occasion for me to air a Nit, here in Nitville. Ahem: it concerns when people say things like “the price of gas this month is exponentially larger than last month”. Two data points cannot support the conclusion that the growth is exponential. Could be linear, could be oscillating, could be random! I think people like saying “X is exponentially larger than Y” because it sounds like X is super duper larger than Y. But you just can’t say that about only two data points. There, I rest my Nit.
@Cat Lady Margaret Completely agree. Even a whole time series can usually be described by many kinds of growth. I wish it were used only to make a suggestion of an underlying process that behaves exponentially, such as bacterial reproduction. And don't get me started on the use and abuse of poor "parabolic" in the world of finance...
@Cat Lady Margaret The thing about nits is they only become itchy when someone else points them out. Thank you, i guess, for giving me a new source of irritation. I shall now be irked every time i hear exponential used incorrectly. It’s now on my hitlist, along with “decimated”, “less” (for “fewer”), “who” (for “whom”), “its” (for “it’s”), etc.
@Cat Lady Margaret yes it's just pitching a longer word into a statement to make it sound more impressive. I've noticed a far greater usage of 'existential' of late in newspaper articles. In many cases the word could be omitted without any lessening of the meaning conveyed. I imagine that journalists like to add a frisson of Sartre to their pieces
Excellent puzzle. Excellent. Simply superb. Very "power"ful. I especially love NINEARMEDBANDIT, and that the "nine" could have been any number other than zero. I can't wait for a certain Warsaw native to weigh in. I think this is going to convert him to a math lover. (Not using his name to avoid emu tantrums, but I'm not confident it will work.)
@Francis Zero^zero can also be one.
Some of these comments deeply sadden me. Years ago there was a book decrying that “innumeracy” is much more socially acceptable than illiteracy. If you believe the level of math in this puzzle is too obscure (except for the zero exponent which is a tad esoteric), how do you grasp many political and economic issues? A comparable level of illiteracy might be to ignore 5+ syllable words. A journalist recently wrote alarmingly that the price of the average new car has doubled since 2000!!! Seems reasonable to me.
@Denward Chung Just last night I happened to watch the prescient satire Idiocracy (2005), which imagines a profoundly dimwitted populace in 2505 that had completely abandoned the acquisition of knowledge, to the utter detriment of society. At the end, the 'hero' recalls a time when being smart was cool, or at least not despised, and urges everyone to read a book. Maybe he should have recommended the crossword puzzle, too. I'm no math aficionado, but after a few crosses, even I managed to excavate BASE and EXPONENT from the deep recesses of high school algebra.
@Denward Chung Depresses me, too.
Just came here to say that my brain cannot and will not ever understand why any number raised to the power of zero is one, but I will know who the entertaining and fabulous Lola Falana is until my dying day. 😁
If we raise some number C > 0 to the K power, and separately to the L power, and multiply the results, we find that C^K × C^L = C^(K+L). (Because C^K is K Cs multiplied together, and C^L is L Cs multiplied together.) Now trying to maintain this nice rule, we see that that means we must have C^K × C^0 = C^(K+0) = C^K. And so C^0 = 1.
@Tom Maybe to clarify Dan’s erudite summary with a concrete example. 3x3 is 3^2. 3x3x3 is 3^3. 3^5 is 3x3x3x3x3 which is also 3^(3+2). But if we extend that, 3^(5+0) is also 3x3x3x3x3. So to make it work, 3^0 has to equal 1.
@Tom This one'll really make your head hurt. Factorials. 3! (3-factorial) is 3x2x1 = 6 4! is 4x3x2x1 = 24 1! is 1 0! is also 1.
@Tom - Definitely not reading the math in the comments below. I just vaguely remembered from long ago school that the something raised to the zero power is one. I would have followed the proof when I was in school.
@Tom Historically, I believe exponents were first used with positive integer powers, and negative and zero powers came along in a way that made the laws of exponents consistent in exactly the way the other commenters explain. Alternatively, I think the way I was taught in university was by first defining the exponential function (which has base e) as the unique function that is everywhere equal to its own derivative, and letting exponentiation generally follow from that. We are first taught with good reason that x^y means "y repeated multiplications of x" because it is well-motivated, intuitive, and applicable to basic concepts in geometry, etc. But strictly speaking this is not a proper definition of exponentiation at all, since it only works for positive integers. x^0 is usually the first example we learn where it is not directly useful, so it sticks out. But it's equally insufficient, for example, for fractional exponents, like we encounter with compounding interest, etc.. In short, there's no point in trying to wrap your head around "zero repeated multiplications of nine", which doesn't necessarily make sense. Instead, understand the rules of exponents, how they make exponentiation a useful tool, and how x^0=1 is consistent with those rules.
@Tom With you on the highly energized Ms Falana. I'm taking another shot at explaining why n^0=1. Here we go: n^j = n multiplied by itself k times. So n^3=n x n x n. and n^2=n x n. Similarly, n^5=n x n x n x n x n. You can group this as (n x n x n) • (n x n) So (EXAMPLE A) n^5=n^3 × n^2 and more generally, n^j × n^k=n^(j+k). 《Hang tough, we're almost done.》 If multiplying terms like n^j can be done by adding their exponents, then dividing is similarly done by /subtracting/ exponents. So n^5 ÷ n^3 = n^2. (This is just Example A after we divided both sides by n^3.) But then what happens when we divide any quantity by itself? We know that's always 1. So (EXAMPLE B) n^5 ÷ n^5 = 1. But the two exponents here are identical. So, 5-5 = 0. (We're dividing the base terms, so we're subtracting exponents.) So n^5 ÷ n^5 = n^(5-5) = n^0 = 1. And this applies to any number. There ya go. Thanks for your patience.
@Tom For positive exponents, you multiply; for negative ones, you divide 1/(the number). 3^2 is 3x3; 3^(-2) is 1/(3x3), or 1/9. When you multiply two numbers with exponents, you add the exponents. 3^2 x 3^(-2) = 9 x 1/9 = 9/9 = 3^0 = 1.
@Tom I don't know. I'm still dividing by zero. 2 + 2 = cat ?
When a gimmick is too cool for school, even in the easened era, a shout out is in order. Huzzah!
Brilliant! Really enjoyed the whole idea and the phrases. Thanks a 10^6 !
Too difficult for me to finish - or to even properly begin, to say the truth. In almost half an hour I was able to fill in the NW and SE corners only. Elsewhere I had almost nothing. Crosses gave me the EXPONENT part of the revealer, but I don't know what that means - what little mathematical terminology I know is Polish. No themed entry was a gimme, and without enough crosses to get any of them, I was completely stumped by the theme. Given all that, I saw no chance of progressing further so I left the grid unfinished. Having blue-starred yesterday's and Friday's puzzles, and now having abandoned this Sunday solve, I'm on one of my longest losing streaks 🎰 I'm writing this from a hotel at one of Poland's most impressive castles - the former bishop's seat at Lidzbark Warmiński: <a href="https://imgur.com/a/Km55xiT" target="_blank">https://imgur.com/a/Km55xiT</a>
@Andrzej That's a really impressive structure. Whenever I see towers like that on old buildings I just want to go up to the top of one of them, just to see what it feels like. I've always loved buildings big enough to support those kinds of features. I had imagined that this would have been a doubly tough puzzle for you. But I'm going to avoid saying anything that might seem like disrespect--did you see that little thread we had the other night got taken down? Sometimes I expect a post to get booted--but this one surprised me a bit. Not a big deal, though it's like a grain of sand in my oyster when it happens.
@Andrzej That's interesting coming from a skilled solver like you! I thought the universality of the mathematical representation of exponents would make this one easier for non-US solvers. But in fact many of the themed clues were very USian (I spotted "sweet 16" immediately and that cracked it for me, and "one-armed bandit is also very American lingo). I'm sure your losing streak will break tomorrow!
I was told there’d be no math! I kid, I kid. The title gave the theme away, although NINE to the ZERO was a clever bit of trickery.
@Marshall WalthewA negative exponent would’ve livened things up
@Marshall Walthew I hope someone will keep track of how many times this complaint will appear. My estimate? Oodles.
I needed a little help to get things squared away, but at least i didn't have to get to the root of things. 🤪
My math-geek-y self LOVES this puzzle to the nth degree:D It's a delightful number, and I feel particularly empowered having finished it with no lookups. A few entries were guesses but they worked out, no rooting around Wikipedia for me.
When I saw the title, I knew there would be math. Fortunately, I didn’t have to do any. I understand why so many had trouble with the trivia in this one, as much of it was pretty old. I guess I’m just old enough to remember enough of it. Like Don Ho. My parents had a record of him singing “Tiny Bubbles” (… in the wine/ Make me happy/ Make me feel fine) and knowing he was Hawaiian, I felt confident slotting him in there. I’ve never heard “Pearly Shells”, but I concur with Mr. Ho’s stance on bubbly wine.
@Heidi Wow, this brought back memories. My parents had a Don Ho album. My younger sisters and I would sit on the floor and pretend we were paddling while singing "one paddle, two paddle". I wonder if my sisters remember or have blocked that out!
@Heidi, I was humming "Tiny Bubbles" when I saw that clue. I feel certain that Mr. Ho made appearances on Lawrence Welk back in the day; I have memories/images of being at my grandparents' apartment on a Sunday night and watching various variety shows. I must say that's a genre that I miss, corny as they often were!
@Heidi Yes, I remember the album well!! I pictured it immediately. It took me a few seconds to actually access his name, but it was absolutely there in my memory bingo ball cage. ☺️
Great puzzle, Tracy. I wonder how hard you had to work to get the Beatles' song positioned at 64A.
Clever and original, and I enjoyed every minute of it, thanks a ten (to the power of 6)!
Wow. How amazing was that theme and construction. When I'm (sixty) four (3) was my aha moment. Not a bad song to be buzzing around my head for the rest of the day! Impressive how Tracy placed the exponents in the perfect spot, still had room for a revealer and still able to have great fill. Favorites were 'Ricochet' for 'It's off the wall' crossing 'It's for the birds'. Also, learned about Tone Tags today. I Like the concept . I Want to try it out but will anyone know what I mean!?
I enjoyed this puzzle. No prizes for guessing what I’m majoring in next year.
I had the advantage of growing up in Oklahoma, where Osage oranges used to be a common tree to use in hedgerows, many of which were planted after the Dust Bowl era because it was believed that they would slow down the winds and prevent the topsoil from blowing away in a drought. They're also called bodark trees and bow wood trees (the wood makes excellent bows). As kids we all called them horse apple trees, and the aromatic softball-sized fruit got used as missles in horse-apple fights. They're heavy, and they hurt even worse than dirt clods. I knew most of the answers, was able to get the rest from the crosses, figured out the trick once the word "exponent" showed up, and solved this one fairly quickly.
@Bruce I stumbled across a copse of Osage orange trees many years ago in Staten Island, NY. The fruits had fallen from the trees and seemed very unique. A naturalist colleague identified them. They looked attractive in a bowl, but other than that I saw no use for them. A few years went by and I saw them at a vendor’s stand at the Union Square Green Market with the sign “Natural Roach Deterrent”. This was debunked years previously, but persisted as an urban legend I assume.
Any crossword based on math terms is almost impossible for an old English major to complete, but I did it!!!
I can understand the frustration of many regarding the number of proper names in the puzzle, especially the two that crossed, and especially for those solvers from foreign lands. I am lucky to have known them, but often I feel just as much at sea when it comes to clues involving textspeak, Biblical references, and more recent pop culture. I look at the NYT crossword as not just a puzzle, but a constantly evolving learning experience.
Never a fan of checking multiple clues to solve one of them, and never a fan of doing arithmetic, I am greatly relieved to have been able to finish this puzzle while avoiding both Scylla and Charybdis.
This solve was an out of body experience. The answers just seemed to float into place,; for me they are common phrases dredged up from ancient memory without concentration. A couple of stretches plugged in by trial and error. Really amusing, and believe me I’m no mathematician.
@Skeptical1 I know what you mean. I was in the zone and bing! I’d had no idea I was done.
Humorous insights. Numerous delights. Me happy.
I loved this! Everything about it. Cleverly constructed, great clues. Chef’s kiss!
I hope I won't need that hour back... This was mostly awesome, and almost as irksome. Because I started in the SE corner, the EXPONENT was clear, and when I reached THANKS A TEN, of course it was all over. My fave in this AbFab Puzz was WHEN I'M FOUR (to the third power) even though it's 15 years ago for me...(which @SP in Cincinnati, explains why I forgot having that chat before...)... Ask any ballerina: the TOE PADS are a *necessity*--not mere accessories! I associate "MANZANILLA" with olives (always instructing DHubby to look for the right variety!) and kept trying to fit MARSALA or (A)MONTILLADO or some such in there. Aaaaand...never having seen either show, I thought MorK was from Melmac, and tried different ways to get ORK (Var.) in.... Tiny nit: it's either AP CALC AB or AP CALC BC...not just CALC. In retrospect, I wish I'd printed on 2 pages and used a colored ink for the themers (of course--given away by the "See..." clues) ...because my eyeballs are burning like crazy... My hat is off to Tracy Gray (and quickly back on...bedhead.) I'll see you all tomorrow!
@Mean Old Lady Interesting - I'm just a couple of years behind you. My current age: Sunset Strip (and of course last year was... Trombones.) ....
It was the Beatles clue that tipped me off as well! I would have thought most people who graduated high school could manage exponents, but this is not a place I would have expected them. Well done!
@Claire Care to clarify the antecedent of "them"?😈
It was fun but it also gave me a brain hurty.
[It's precisely whenever a cat decrees it to be so] LAPTIME
@ad absurdum Purr-fect. *********** *********** ***********
A pleasant 15 minute fill TARNISHed by 20 minutes of flyspecking due to the natick at 116. Hadn't heard of either so thought it was fAHTI/fOLA.
Had fun with this one! Came to the comments to see if there was a nod to the math-themed answer in 105D. Nicely done thruout!
What a fabulous puzzle! It baffled me for a while but then the penny dropped. Very clever and fun, thank you.
Fantastic puzzle! Loved the theme and the cluing! And enjoyed dusting off the math muscles...!
I cast an aspersion at your natick, but cherish the power to be one.
Disappointed. Came to the comments hoping to see people complaining that they couldn’t possibly get this puzzle because they didn’t take AP CALC.
Don’t you think it’s a bit too much to ask? Language skills *and* math?
This was one time that I am thrilled I did not read the puzzle title. It made the aha moment!
@Krad - I didn't read the puzzle title either, until now. The title is a spoiler - it gives too much away.
@Krad always avoid the reading the Sunday title until after finishing the puzzle 🤓
Loved it! Haven't given one thought to math since 11th grade (a looong time ago), so I'm grateful I remembered what X to the Yth power even meant. Great job, Tracy!
Thank you, editors, for rejecting the interstate clue. This was a fun puzzle.
Fun puzzle! I did it on paper in the magazine so I saw the title and constructor's comment which was a bit of a spoiler, but it was pretty clear when the TWO which should've been "sixteen"was kittycorner to FOUR . lol NINE to the zero ARMED BANDIT! THANKS A TEN to the 6th to Tracy Gray . Think I'll adopt that one for my math-y friends.
I liked it plenty, but my "aha" moment came rather quick- in my first encounter with the theme. So even the 9^0 wasnt much of a surprise at that point. Good puzzle. What am I gonna do all Sunday, now?