Transcript
The nation's favorite car buying site, Dundeele Motors, is home to the largest range of new and premium used cars from all of Ireland's trusted car dealerships. That's why you'll find Brady's Mercedes Benz on Dundeele. Visit the Brady's Mercedes Benz showroom on Dundeele to find your next car. Dundeele Motors, for confident car buying and deals to feel great about from all of Ireland's trusted car dealerships. Visit Dundee.ie today. This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is the James Altucher Show. AJ, when is this coming out? April 26. I really enjoyed reading it. It's like my favorite topic in the world, and you wrote about it. So Aw. 2 of my favorite things, AJ Jacobs writing and a book about puzzles that even mentioned as a whole chapter on chess. A whole chapter on chess, that you were helpful with. You were my consultant, if I recall. No. No. Cyrus Lactuala was. I know. But he yeah. You were the, behind the scenes consultant. Okay. I'll go along with that. But, yeah, thank you. First of all, I'm enjoying the list, feature that you were doing. Oh, good. That's great. Yeah. Is, listen. If you ever need me to, be a guest on that, I am happy to anytime. Yeah. Make, you know what you do? Make a list on notepad.com. Maybe we can make a list about the puzzler. Notepad.com, n0tepd.com. And Yeah. It's like Twitter combined with the ability to make idealists and search other people's idealists, making lists every day. That's awesome. Yeah. Alright. I'm gonna join. I am gonna join. That'll be great. And, also, I miss good or bad, so I'm ready to I don't know how your schedule is, but after 26th like, give me a week after 26th or so, but maybe we could do another one. Yeah. I mean, the first topic could be puzzles, good or bad, because Great idea. As you probably encountered in your so so the first thing people should know about you is that when you pick a topic to write about, you don't just write, like, this boring thing like, oh, here's the history of this topic. Here's some interesting things. Here's some interviews I did. You immerse yourself in the topic. Like, when you wrote about genealogy, you broke the record for the world's largest family reunion. When you Right. With you there as a speaker, I was. Yeah. I was just talking about this with, with people the other day because I I remember I checked in with my cousin, doctor Oz, and, George Church was speaking right before me, and he's, like, the premier scientist in genomics. And, and then, you had the band We Are Family singing on the stage. So I I tried to throw a good party for all of my cousins. Yeah. The point of that book was that we're all cousins. All 7,000,000,000 of us. So I tried to throw the biggest party for all my cousins. We didn't get a 100% of the the 7,000,000,000, but we got a we got a few 1,000, including James. But, yes, you're right. That is sort of the way I I like to write by becoming a human guinea pig and going all in. So whether it's following all the rules of the Bible as literally as possible from the 10 commandments to stoning adulterers. And the the year of living biblically where you actually did stone an adulterer in Central Park? Right. Very small, like pebbles. I I didn't don't wanna give that reference to violence nonetheless. It is probably technically illegal. Well, he threw them at me first, if you recall. Ah, yes. He was he was very angry that, I was gonna stone adulterers. Anyway, that is, that is what I like to do. And and it's so unique. It makes it so entertaining, like, that you're doing it. So it's not like it it gives you a different perspective than someone who's just writing, like, a regular nonfiction book. Well, thank you. Yeah. I like to take the reader along on this adventure and this journey, and then also have takeaways because I know from my friend, James Altucher, you want takeaways in the book. You wanna give the reader something that changes their life for the better. So I try to do combine the the that with the the James Altiger advice. And, and And so this one was was all about again, one of my favorite topics, puzzles of all sorts. You have chapters on everything from anagrams, which are, you know, words that are the letters are out of order, and you have to figure out what the word is, to math puzzles, to crossword puzzles, to mazes, riddles, chess puzzles, Sudoku and Ken Ken and Rubik's cube and and so on. And That's an impressive you've memories mem remembered all those. Yeah. By the way, I've been taking memory lessons. So Oh. Yeah. Well, they're working. Tell your teacher. And, you immersed yourself in it. Like, tell tell me some of the things you did because I was jealous of every single thing you were doing. Like, I can't believe how jealous I was. Right. Well, the book is a a combination of, sort of a history, my memoir of my lifelong love of puzzles, these lessons you can learn of how to be a better thinker in real life, the secrets by using the secrets of puzzles. But for me, my favorite part is going on these crazy adventures to meet these wild subcultures. So I did everything from I went to Spain and represented the United States in the World Jigsaw Puzzle Championship. I went to the headquarters of the CIA and looked at one of the most famous unsolved puzzles in the world. I played Garry Kasparov in chess. What did you play you game? Well, I shouldn't say that. He We played puzzles together. Okay. So we collaborated. And I went to the hardest corn maze and got hopelessly lost and frustrated. So, yeah, it was all of these wild oh, and the MIT Mystery Hunt, which is, like, the hardest scavenger hunt in the history of humanity. Just crazy. When you described one of the the puzzles which you had the final answer for, so there's a 150 puzzles that you have to solve in the scavenger hunt, and you solved or helped solve one of them. But the steps it took for them, your teammates, to come up with that were so ludicrous. I can't even imagine like, I was not good at puzzle type thinking, but I can't even imagine thinking that way. No. This was it was hilarious. The MIT Mystery Hunt is the Ironman triathlon for nerds. So what happens is every January, 2,000 of the smartest people in the world gather in Boston at MIT, and they're not kids. They're like, you know, real rocket scientists and doctors. And they compete for 72 straight hours, sometimes not sleeping, to solve a 150 of these insane puzzles that don't have directions. They make no sense. They'll be like one will be a fortune cookie and inside is a fortune with just random symbols, and that's the puzzle. And so I joined one of the champion teams, which by the way is 50 people because you need that these puzzles are so hard that one person can't solve them. You need someone who's like a surgeon, a brain surgeon who knows about that. You literally need a surgeon on your team. We need it because the puzzle that I worked on, was it was based on the game Operation, and it involved actually, it was the grossest game, puzzle I've ever done. You had to look at at video footage of surgery, try to figure out what the surgery was. Oh, that's a gallbladder operation. Figure out the insurance number for that, and then do, like, 8 other, in Okay. But that was the leap that was incredible to me. Like, so so you you have a pic it can't it started correct me if I'm wrong. It started with a picture of a body. Like, how how did it start? So that particular one of the 1 50 puzzles, what how did that start? This one was called Operation, and it was sort of a riff on the the the old game Operation. But instead of, when you pressed on on the body part, a, footage of actual surgery would come up, and you had to know exactly what kind so not just that it's nose surgery. You had to know that it's, you know, surgery to get the polyp. And then only a general surgeon. Like, oh, you can't even be just a surgeon. You have to be, like, just recently graduated from medical school to know all those different types of surgeries all over the body. It's I think we had several surgeons on the team, so that might have helped. And yeah, and then you had to make this conceptual leap to figuring out that you had to use the insurance number. Now, there was some sort of vague hint. I can't remember exactly in the instructions where it gave some sort of hint, but I would never have made that leap. And that's what I love, the mental leaps. I think that's and that's what you're good at. You talk about idea sex where you take 2 different things, like, you know, toasters and space travel, and then you you make them, and it's a toaster in space. That's interesting because that's interesting because a lot of these and I wanna get back to this one riddle, like, because it was amazing, but, I mean, the one puzzle you saw. But a lot of the puzzles, if you think about it, are examples of idea sex. Like, 2 different completely disparate notions or ideas or concepts that are combined together. Like, that happens in crossword puzzles or these cryptics that you described. But okay. Fin finish destroy so so they basically take every operation. For some reason, they find the insurance code for they realize they need to find the insurance code for what that operation is. And then what do they do with the insurance codes? You know what? I have I cannot even remember. There are, like, 14 different steps that you had to do. I don't know. Some sort of quadratic equation with the insurance codes. And eventually, every puzzle eventually solves to one word, and you have to send that word in to the evil geniuses who are running the hunt and say and in this case, it was tracheostomy. It wasn't even tracheotomy. It was tracheostomy, which is another way to spell it, And that turned out to be right, and I actually did help a tiny bit. But in the sort of the easiest way, I used the Wheel of Fortune strategy. So there were all these letters that were there and some that were missing, and I was able to say, hey. I think that this is tracheotomy. But Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was like no. It was b__ underscore k_ge, and you said blockage. Oh, right. Block because it wasn't even the final answer. It was, like, step 3 out of 14. But I felt I contributed. That's a contribution. Like, 0.1%. Your years of watching Wheel of Fortune paid off. That's it. And I I love this event because, one of the contestants said you know, his wife is saying tells him, you know, these are some of the smartest people in the world, and they spend 3 days on these ridiculous puzzles. Why aren't they curing cancer? And he said, well, these are the people who are curing cancer. The other 360 days or 2 days of the year, these are their 3 days to get together and I think practice their skills and become even better and more creative thinkers. That's one of the points of the book is that puzzles are great practice. They're not a waste of time. They are I I wanna talk about that because you can make many arguments about that. I mean, there's something primal about puzzles. People have been doing puzzles and riddles since the birth of our species. And and Before that. Before that. Yeah. I'm sure. And and you even refer to, like I mean, there's some kind of, like, religious element. Like, for instance, they're even like, one of the earliest Sudoku like puzzles is are these magic squares where no matter you know, it's a square, like, let's say, 10 by 10 or 5 by 5. And no matter which way you add up rows or columns, they all add up to the same number. By the way, diagonals as well. I I just wanted to be mention that. Because in the in the book, I'm not sure you mentioned diagonals. Oh, really? I I meant to. But, and then Benjamin you you show an example from Benjamin Franklin. He made this enormous magic square. I don't even know how he did it. Because he loved puzzles. But you mentioned how, like, even in ancient Egypt, people would, like, wear these magic squares. Like, there was almost, like, this religious element because a solved puzzle is is almost like a form of enlightenment or nirvana, like a mini enlightenment. Oh, I love that. I I I guess I touched on that, but I I loved your point that it does it does It informs religion. It's in every part of human life. That's what I learned. So religion, certainly war, there's tons of puzzles in war, you know, secret codes and Yeah. Ciphers. Cipher and romance. I love there were these stories of in, the 1800, the people would their version of sexting was to send secret coded messages in the newspaper classifieds. So that was the way they communicated. So they would say like one was, I have the most beautiful horse in the land, but not the most beautiful lady, and it's killing me. You know, sign, GK. And but it was coded in this, and you had to decipher it. And who knows whether he eventually hooked up, whether it was a successful pickup line, but I love that it's woven into every part of our lives. And I think what you said is the reason, is because we're wired for it from the dawn of history before history. You know, monkeys using a stick to get out termites, that's solving a puzzle. To me, puzzle is anything where you use creative thinking to achieve a goal. So I define it very broadly. And and this one, I just learned after the book came out. So I don't I or after I finished writing the book that, slime molds solve puzzles. They solve they don't have a brain, but they solve puzzles. So they are good at mazes. You put food at the end other side of a maze, and a slime mold will solve the maze to get to it. Now will it solve it perfectly, or will it make mistakes along the way and then back up and try other paths? I'm guessing it's more of a trial and error type thing. But That would be amazing if they had, like, some Right. That would be good. Well well, it's interesting because I mean, there's even I mean, there's so many different directions to go, but, you know, puzzles are almost like a safe way to practice these real world difficulty. Let's say, you know, 40000 years ago, you're living in the jungle. You don't know, you know, which direction is the evil tribes that will kill you, which direction are the animals that will kill you, which plants and trees have poisonous fruit as opposed to food food that's safe to eat? So these are all puzzles that you have to figure out. Like, if there's a rustling in the wind, what does it mean? Is it wind, or is it the tribe coming to attack you? And it seems like developing puzzle thinking by solving actual puzzles is like practice for the real world. And so maybe that's why we get these like, our brain cells, our dopamine rewards us for solving puzzles because it's gonna help our survival. Like, the better puzzle solver will, you know, his descendants or her descendants will live while the not so good puzzle solver, their descendants won't live. Exactly. If you wanna survive, if you wanna, right. Puzzles will save your life. But I totally agree. And actually, Paul Bloom, who you probably had on the show. Great. Oh, he's a great psychologist. He was at Yale. Now he's at Toronto. But he he's one of the ones I interviewed. Why do we love puzzles so much? And it's exactly what you say. Puzzles are like play, for solving big life problems. And, and he says play is so important. You know, that's why dogs, young dogs wrestle with each other because they're they're honing their skills. So when they get in an actual fight, they'll be good. So and it's like what you say. You know, you your vision informed a lot of this book because I love what you always say that you spend 15 minutes every day, whatever it is, brainstorming new ideas. And you said it doesn't matter if they're good. It's that you are using the brain as a muscle so that when you do confront a problem, and I think the one you use as an example was, you know, you have a flat tire and you don't have a a a jack. What do you do? And that will help you stay creative. And same with puzzles. That's what puzzles are. It it's real true because you could read about like, let's say you read an inspirational biography of somebody who inspires you, and you see how they solve things. That's great, but it won't improve your ability to solve things. I I realized that you have to actually do the thing that you're practicing to be better at. You can't just like, reading how to be better at something will only get you, like, 1% of the way there or 2% of the way there. It's good clues, but it's not gonna get you there. Like, if I read about how to play better tennis, okay, maybe that'll give me some ideas when I play, but you have to actually play to get better. And, usually, I can play with a coach. Like, when you do these like, the MIT puzzle, you're not playing with a coach, but you're playing with 50 people you're in on your team who you're learning from. So that helps as well. And they are very aware. They have meta strategies that they think about. Like, here's how we're gonna attack this problem. We're going to break it into these chunks, or we're gonna do it reverse engineer it. We're going to, you know, turn it upside down. And that was one of the great lessons of this adventure is I could use like, this one was in the book, so you might remember it. But there's, a guy in a cell 10 by 10 by 10, and the floor is dirt. There's no way out, no doors, except there is a skylight. So he starts digging and he's digging and digging and digging. And what is he doing? Like, why he knows he can't get out through the floor. It just keeps going down. So why is he digging? And if you remember, the answer is he is building a, a hill because he's not just digging. He's doing the opposite. He's building a mountain. So you gotta look at this problem from the opposite. He's going to build a little hill and climb out through the skylight. And I use that type of thinking all the time, just reversing my thinking. I think it's it's how Henry Ford came up with the assembly line. You know, people stay in their place and the car moves instead of the opposite. I use it even when I'm doing laundry. The other day, I was picking up, instead of bringing the laundry to the hamper, I realized I have laundry strewn all over my apartment because I have 3 young boys. I'm going to bring the hamper to the laundry and it will save me several trips. So that's just one example of creative thinking that puzzles have helped me. See. And and this kind of challenges your definition of a puzzle because, yes, creative thinking is required, but and I'm talking about human made puzzles right now. We'll get to other computer made puzzles in a sec, and maybe we won't get to it. We'll see because but but there's something very specific about puzzles is that there's an artistry to them where just going through the steps to solve something won't solve a good puzzle. So, like, if I have a math problem, you could say every math problem is a puzzle. Like, if I have to do 685 times 572, you could argue, okay. I've gotta think creatively to solve this problem. But that would be wrong. Like, puzzles aren't like that. Puzzles require some extra twist that does give you that enlightenment. Like, you mentioned and I'm not gonna focus on chess puzzles, I promise. But you mentioned in that chapter, there there was a a type of puzzle called a grotesque, and you were given the puzzle. And and you intuitively knew that, oh, there seemed to be, like, an obvious answer, but the obvious answer can't possibly be the solution because this is a puzzle, not just what's the best move here. So you had to find some quirky way to solve it. And and, I'll if people wanna solve it in your book, I won't say how you solved it. But, you know, there there's kind of, like, a clever twist in a puzzle. Like, with the guy digging, it's not just that he's digging. You also have to think, what's he doing with this dirt? Because it's enclosed, he's has to be building a hill. Or there was there was many examples of this throughout throughout the, the book, and now I'm gonna forget some of them. But there were many examples where, like, the like, particularly in the cryptics, you know, where you're trying to find a word. And part of the sentence is sort of a weird clue for the word, and part of the sentence is the definition of the word. Right. These are cryptics are like crosswords, but 18,000 times more sadistic, and they are all but, yes, you're I love that, and I totally agree. Puzzles require some level of ingenuity, a twist. That's that's at the heart of a great puzzle. And I think that that's at the heart of great ideas. You know? That is when you make a a great leap. So, like, the mRNA vaccine, that was instead of, you know, that was like instead of trying to recreate the entire, protein, the entire virus, then let's just create a little part, and we know that that won't actually hurt us, but it'll still stimulate the immune system. So that's, like, totally a novel twisty idea, and, that's what I love. But, yeah, I I am glad, that you like the grotesque. Have you ever heard that that phrase, grotesque? I had never heard that phrase. You know? And I've been solving chess puzzles since I was a little kid, actually. But I agree with Gary Kasparov, who he mentioned in the book. He doesn't like the grotesque because they're not going to appear in real games. And I sort of agree with him, but they're still fun to solve. You know? Yeah. Well, they just make me laugh. I never thought I would laugh at a an arrangement of chess pieces on a board. But Grotesk is all 16 black pieces arranged in crazy, like, in a corner, and then 2 white pieces, and you have to do it so that the that white wins. But Gary was great. First of all, he insulted me. That's how he he started. That's, that he he means well. Well, he was he said, I I he came over to my apartment, and I had spent all day setting up. And I have the chessboard already in an arrangement. And he got there, and he said, this is a very cheap chessboard. And I was like, oh, he's like, oh, so cheap plastic. And I was like, I'm sorry. Should I get another one? And he's like, no. I'm from the Soviet Union. I'm used to cheap chessboards. So I guess I dodged a bullet. But he, he talks a lot. I like when he talks about the long game and doing sometimes you have to do surprising things like sacrifice a queen. That is short term crazy, like, the dumbest thing you could do. But long term, sometimes it pays off. Yeah. I mean, like, you could you could think about every game is a series of puzzles. Like, you're you're in a move in a game, and the puzzle is, what is the best move I should take? And I'm not just talking about chess. I'm talking about checkers. I'm talking about risk. I'm talking about monopoly. Like, given a set of choices, it's a puzzle. What what choice should I make? And it's hard. Like, every every chess position is a is a puzzle of sorts. But and, again, but there's a whole like, people don't realize, like, people like Vladimir Nabokov, the famous writer of Lolita and other books, he was there was a title for it. He was a master of chess composition. He composed puzzles and and achieved, like, a master ranking at it. And so it's a it's an art form. And that's what he said. He says it's got all the elements of great art form. It's got surprise and deceit and, form and I can't symmetry. Who knows? Whatever he said. And to win a game, like any game of of any kind, you have to do something unexpected. Like, if you to play tennis to to win a game of tennis, you have to hit the ball on the other side of the court that your opponent was expecting. So, you know, that's a common way to to win, and it's it's difficult to do. Because as you get better and better, people expect you know, they there's a wider range of things they expect you to do. Right. And, and I think that is one definition of games is that it's 2 people playing puzzles at the same time. You know? They each have their own puzzle, and the opponent is part of the puzzle. You can even say I wonder if you can even sort of define the the quality of a game. Like, is this a good game or a bad game based on how how many puzzles there are in the game? In other words, like, take Monopoly. Monopoly is a pretty good game. But sometimes, you know, you roll the dice, so that's an element of chance. And you land on the square, and you have to do what the square tells you to do. So it's not like you have a puzzle every move. You only have a puzzle maybe on half the moves. And Yeah. But those puzzles, though, will be instrumental in in decide like, you know, having a strategy for solving puzzles in monopoly is how you beat your opponents. Right. I guess, yeah, the I guess most games have an element of luck and an element of skill, and the skill part is where the puzzles come in. So if you've got chutes and ladders, that has practically no puzzle except for, like, how do I spin the Yeah. The the little spinner thing. So, yeah. But good games are all about puzzles. And that's kind of I took it even further though because I started to see everything in life as a puzzle. You know, my marriage is a puzzle. This book is a puzzle. How do I put it together? This, your producer, Jay, was saying that me assembling this mic was a puzzle because I was having trouble with that. And I love that. I love the idea of seeing everything as a puzzle because you know why? It makes conversations. If you see a conversation as a puzzle instead of an argument, I find that not just more pleasant, but more productive. So if I'm talking to someone from the other side of the political spectrum, instead of trying to berate them and tell them they're dumb and tell them, you know, look at these facts, I treat it as a puzzle. Why do we disagree? What do we really disagree about? What evidence is there that we could change? What evidence could change my mind? So that to me is is one of the only ways out of this nightmare, this culture war, is to treat the, other people, treat the issues like a puzzle that you're solving together, that you are not trying to beat the other person down. Yeah. Like, you know, if you think about it, let's say you're arguing with someone in some debate. Again, you both could take logical approaches. You both have your reasoning. Some of it you know, if obviously, if you're on the other side of someone else, you think some of their reasoning is ridiculous, but they don't. And how do you how do you push forward? And you could use puzzle like thinking. A, what's something unexpected that the other side did not think of, for instance? B, what's my end goal here? Is my end goal to defeat this person so he changes his behavior or she? And or is my end goal to be friends with this person? In which case, I might not fight as strongly. Or is my end goal to learn something or maybe just you know? So in in a puzzle, you often think of, like, a jigsaw puzzle. You think of what the final picture looks like, and then you put the pieces together accordingly. If you didn't have the final picture, it would be much more difficult. You know, in chess, you think of what does the final checkmate look like, and how could it occur? And you work backwards from that and so on. So, yeah, puzzle like thinking could make you a more interesting conversationalist because you have to think of something different to bring up. Yeah. I love that. By the way, I love that idea of what is the goal in working backwards. That I used in tons of puzzles, and that is one of the bighere, let me give you one. You might know this one. Probably not. Go for it. Pretend you don't. Pretend you don't, or you don't have to pretend. But it's a famous story of the mathematician, Gauss, who was, I think, in the 1600s, maybe 1700. And he, his teacher he was at school, and his teacher said, alright, everyone. The assignment is to add up all the numbers from 1 to a 100. And, he he paused for maybe 10 seconds, and then he raised his hand, and he says, I got it. And the teacher's like, what? That's that's impossible. You're a liar. And he says, no. I got it. And what he did was he did a strategy that was unexpected but much more efficient and clean. So do you do you know what strategy he used? Yeah. Because okay. I know the thinking process. So, like, let's say you're adding up the numbers from 1 to 100. It's gonna be 99 +1 Exactly. 98+2. So it's a 100 times A 101 because you do 1 and a 100. So it's a 101, 99 plus 2. So you're a 100 and 1. N plus 1 divided by 2, something like that. Exactly. So it's 50 couplets, each adding up to a 101, which is 5,050, which is not that hard. And so, what he did is instead of doing the expected, like, 1 plus 2 is 3, plus 3 is 6, he stepped back and said, is there a better he said, what is my end goal? My end goal is to add up all of these numbers. Is there a better way to do it? Is there a shortcut? And he realized, Yes, there is. So I love that. When you see a puzzle or see a problem, don't just dive in and start grinding away. Like, pause, step back, and say, is there a faster way to do it, a better way to do this? Yeah. It's, it's fascinating. Because, like, if you think about it, the teacher told him, add up all the numbers, you know, from 1 to a 100, say. And if you follow that literally, it you do think, oh, of course, 1 plus 2 plus 3, you kinda go in order. But he had the insight or or the kind of the practice to not always go in order or not take too literally, what people are saying. And you have to you have to not take too literally things in order to solve puzzles. If you literally take the clues for a crossword puzzle, you would never solve a crossword puzzle. Yeah. A good crossword puzzle is a good crossword puzzle and this is a big debate in the the crossword community. But a good one is, to me, is not like, what's this river in, in the Czech Republic, and someone is leaning on their horn. That is not a good solution to a problem, I don't think. But they, to me, a good crossword clue is all about wordplay, and and that's actually, Will Short, the New York Times editor. If you ask him what is his favorite clue, it is a wordplay one. It is, something like, this turns into a different story. This turns into a different story. This turns into a different story. This turns into a different story. But, see, these are really hard. Like, I always have trouble with these these Well, you know, this is a lot I mean, it helps if I give you it's 2 words. They both start with s, and they're kind of longest words. So think of another what's another meaning of story? That's what you mean say, like, a skyscraper or something. Exactly. So what? Oh, no. No. No. But that is the right meaning of the word story. So if something turns and you step into a new story on something that turns Yeah. Like a staircase or something. Yes. That's it. Oh, okay. But what kind of staircase? One that Spiral staircase. Spiral staircase. You got it with no help at all. Well, I did get help. I did get help. You were you were egging me on. You're you're you were you were giving me clues. Yeah. No. I think with Will Short, since he became the editor of the New York Times crossword puzzle, it's been a lot less about trivia and how much you know about celebrities and literature and more about, wordplay. Right. Which I I really don't like I really don't like crossword puzzles because I don't have I don't wanna know about all these cultural artifacts that, you know, the crossword puzzle creator makes. And some people love it. I I just don't. Wait. So you don't like the the wordplay, or you don't like the trivia? I don't like the trivia. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. The wordplay involves knowing things about the world. So I like puzzles that are self contained. So Got it. Like, I don't have to know anything about the world to to play a Sudoku puzzle, for instance. Right. Right. Right. Or, or or to solve a maze or to solve a jigsaw puzzle. So whereas wordplay even with simple wordplay, you kinda have to know, other things. Yeah. That's such a great point. And I will say, I have not been a fan of puns for most of my life. Mhmm. But this year, I mean, puzzle people are so obsessed with puns. In fact, I went to a puzzle themed wedding where they had traded vows like, I can can promise you that you will always amaze me, and it was like, oh. So it was a mixture of groan and, like, awe. But here's why I gained a little respect for puns is because they remind us that the root of puns is that one word has multiple meanings. And to be aware of that when you were just reading the news is so important because, otherwise, you can be tricked into So if someone is talking about freedom, freedom means a 100 different things. So freedom could mean the free market, but freedom could also mean freedom from monopoly. And, you know, if you have a total free market, it might end up in monopoly. So you've gotta be very careful, and and that's what puns help me, just be wary of the English language. It's so interesting because, like, taking something serious again and, again, this idea that getting good at puzzles is practice for real world things. Take the US constitution. It's one gigantic puzzle. Otherwise, we wouldn't have all this entire we wouldn't have a supreme court that is constantly needed to correctly or incorrectly interpret the constitution. Like, that's their job is to basically take this wordplay that we call the constitution and interpret it for modern times in Right. Constantly. That's what they do all day, every day. That's a great one. Yeah. And what can I give you some of the more painful wordplay that I, Yeah? That I I came across? Well, this is the British crosswords are especially known for their painful wordplay. So for instance, a clue might be just these letters, g e g s, GEGS, g e g s. And, I don't know if you remember that from the book. I think I mentioned it in the book. I I I don't remember that one. Well, that's good. Because then you look I mean, for me, I spent again, it's all about changing perspective. So I spend all of my time like, what the hell is a gag? And I even googled it. A gag is Is that the only clue? G e g s? That's it. And and the answer is two words. Wait. What's the what what's the what's the premise of the puzzle? Like, what are you supposed to figure out? Well, it's just a crossword that's filling in spaces. So GEDS is a clue for the answer is 2 words. The first word is, I think, 9 letters, and the second word is 4 letters. And that's all you know. Is and and and they got GEDS is a clue is the only clue for 2 words. 1 is 9 letters. 1 has 4 letters. Right. I think it's 9. Someone else can yell at me if I got it wrong. But, And it's a wordplay thing. I don't have to know, like, some British historical fact to No. No. This one is wordplay that you would know. Most of my kids my you know, a 4 year old kid would know it. It is, I won't tell you the answer, but the key is you can't you gotta get out of this GEGS. You know, gag was I looked it up. It's the airport code for Portland. I was like, what the hell does that have to do with anything? But you have to totally abandon that way of thinking and just look at it from a whole new angle. And you realize, well, let's look at the lot gags. Like Okay. Let me ask you a question. Was Yeah. Was it were the gags capitalized or not capitalized? It doesn't matter. In this case, it was all four letters were capitalized, but it could be either way. And think about the letters. What what if you rearrange the letters? What would happen? Well, you have eggs. Yeah. So and then, scrambled eggs. Scrambled eggs. So There it is. That's interesting. So it's an anagram that leads to scrambled eggs. Right. I I like practicing anagrams because I used to play a lot of scrabble. So that's all about solving anagrams. Right. Yeah. That is a I am a fan too. I I didn't realize anagrams had this long, crazy history. So there were, like, Alexander the Great had a dream, and this he had a word in his dream, and he didn't know what it meant. And he asked the soothsayers, and they said, oh, well, if you rearrange the letters in the word, it means that you should attack the city. So anagrams have caused wars and all sorts of other crazy things in history. So so let me ask you a couple questions. Like, first off, you were in this world jigsaw puzzle competition, and I and you described how the Russian team, like, destroyed everybody. And and you guys finished one puzzle, though. I mean, you had, like I think it was 4 jigsaw puzzles you had to do by the end of the day. Or Right. It was you had 8 hours to solve 4 big jigsaw puzzles. And we got in there on a fluke because no one else from the US had applied, but there were 40 other countries and all of the other people would, you know, spend hours a day practicing, and they were remarkable. They were like the LeBron James of and their hands were just flying. They had special equipment to rip open the puzzles, and it was hilarious and delightful. And the Russians I am proud of myself because in the book, which closed long before, this Ukraine war, they I said I hate Vladimir Putin. I hate him for many reasons, but I got to meet these 4 women from Siberia and it was like jigsaw diplomacy, like face to face. You're both in here doing jigsaws. And it was part of my thesis that puzzles are one way to unite the world to to save humanity. So we'll see. That's, like, a theme of a lot of your books too. Like, that's the if everybody's a cousin, then Right. We wouldn't go to war with everybody. Although, that's unclear also. But So the cousins playing puzzles. Exactly. That's And then being grateful. That'll solve it all. And then delegating things they don't wanna do. So That's gonna be tough. What's a good strategy for jigsaw puzzles? Right. Well, jigsaw puzzles, I was very skeptical of them. I was snobby in the beginning. It was one of the only puzzles I didn't love, but I was wrong. There are so many nuances to jigsaws. One is when you're faced with We all do it usually by color like looking for the color. But when you get to the top level, if you're faced with one color like a big sky, then they will take the pieces and arrange them on a table. Here are the pieces with 3 knobs and one hole. Here are the pieces with 2 knobs and 2 holes, and so on. And then you're able to do it very quickly. So that I loved. I loved that when you get to a certain level, you get very good at looking at the subtleties of the color. So take the sky again. The sky is not always gonna be the same color blue. It's usually gonna have shadings. So these people say, you know, nothing is black and white. That's the lesson. Everything is grays. So look for the subtle shadings of what's in the sky. And also hold up this was a good one that I use a lot is when you're not sure if 2 pieces fit, then you can hold it up to the light and see if anything sneaks through any light. But it was just remarkable to see these people and how fast their hands moved, and, and just be so good at recognizing, like you say, like, all the different patterns and shades and and also looking at 2 pieces and seeing right away that they fit together. Right. So and what what, what what's a good what other strategies you learn did you learn? Like, you mentioned a whole bunch of Sudoku strategies that I never heard of. And so just what's a good Sudoku strategy? Well, yeah, they had the crazy names like the flying x. I can't even remember them, but they're I talked to one of the I talked to several of the greatest Sudoku and Ken Ken players. By the way, are you Sudoku and Ken Ken, or do you take sides? I've never played Ken Ken. And but I Oh. But after reading about it I've heard about it, of course. And after reading about it in your book, I now wanna I wanna try it. But Sudoku, I've done for a long time. Well, it is funny because there are people in each group that are like they hate each other. They're like the jets and the sharks. Like, so can can people look down on Sudoku people and vice versa? I I had to take But just from the way you describe it, I would probably look down on the Sudoku people even though I'm a Sudoku person. Like, KenKen was like Sudoku plus math. It, like, seemed a lot harder. It's got another element. Well, Sudoku people have their other their their rebuttals to that. But I did, I guess the strategy again, it's you you go you can take the normal route of trying to find, what's missing or then you look at what you have and see. So you take it from both sides. I don't explain that very well, but, but it's in the book. And I what I what I loved about that chapter, if you might remember, is there's this debate in the, in the Sudoku and KenKen community about whether computers can create Sudokus as well as humans. And I love this debate because it's like simp it's sort of a, microcosm of, are computers gonna replace humans? Because the the the guy who invented KenKen, he says the computer generated Ken Kans are soulless. They don't tell a story. He says, mine are a work of art. He literally says, they're like a Michelangelo. They have soul. They have I'm an artist. They tell a story. They have heart. And when I look at this one generated by a computer, it means nothing to me. It's trash. Yeah. That And I just thought that was hilarious. Yeah. That made me wanna try KenKen because Sudoku, I don't think that's possible. I don't I think human generated and computer generated is probably you can't tell the difference. But Mhmm. It's my guess. I don't know. I could be wrong. But Ken can, I'm curious what he means because I could see how there could be some artistry to those problems depending on how you do the math parts of it. Yeah. And I I hope he's right. I hope he's right. I'm a little skeptical, but I hope there's still room for human. I mean, Garry Kasparov, when I brought this up to him because, computers are, of course, better than humans at chess, but they're also can solve chess problems that we can't. Like, their chess problems are are structured so that it's, like, mate in 1 means you have to move 1 piece, and you'll mate the opponent. Mate in 2 is you move 2 pieces, and you'll mate the opponent. There are problems where you have to move 537 times to mate, black, and there's no way humans can do this. And Gary said he would he would he's watched machines solve these 537 mate problems, and he has no idea what's going on for the first 400 moves. He's like, what the hell is the computer doing? And then it suddenly starts to make sense to him. So, but he is optimistic. He says machines and humans will work together in the future. We're not gonna be taken over. And he is a lot smarter than me, so I guess Well, also, I I like his quote. He's the first knowledge worker to potentially be replaced by a computer because he was the first world chess champion to lose to a computer. And it kind of made people wonder, like, is that the end of chess? But, of course, it's just like saying, oh, a car means you don't have to race anymore. Like, cute. Marathon should be over now because we could just drive a marathon. But that's I like it. That's silly. And and computers now are useful for training chess and for understanding strategies that humans previously so it's improved the game because computers have introduced strategies that people previously thought were not so good, and it turns out they're better than people thought. But the problem is is that people cheat. And so, like, you could go to a tournament, and there's always a danger someone's cheating. How do they cheat? Well, they might have, you know, they're supposed to not do this, but they could potentially bring their phone into the bathroom and, you know, check the computer and or, or online. Cheating is rampant online. Like, every day if you play online a lot, then the next day, you'll see, oh, one of your games that somebody cheated, and so you get rating points back. And Oh. But if it but it's hard you know, there's a lot of software to catch cheaters, but you can't make a 100% perfect software. And if someone could make great software, that would make, like, 1,000,000 of dollars just because it's such a big problem. That is so interesting. Yeah. Because there's money at stake if you if in a lot of these online tournaments, you're playing for money. Even in poker, there's there's computers now are better than humans at poker, and so much poker is online. If you have computer assistance, that could be very you know, it makes it unfair to people who just wanna play the game. So Right. So but it is an interesting thing, though, about whether the artistry could be recreated. I mean, now there's computers that make musical compositions that people can't tell if this is a Mozart piece or not. So, you know, eventually, that artistry will be there if they just learn to do that. Well, I'm that's what I'm worried. I mean, are they gonna are they gonna have fun interview podcasts by a robot, that will replace the j you know, James Altitude Okay. I'll I'll 3,000? Let's see. I will ask a question to an AI engine right now. That will good idea. Okay. Let's see. I yeah. The question is the first the puzzle here is what question can I ask this AI that will give me a good answer? So questions I should ask about puzzles. I love it. Alright. This is good. Or or let let me see. Let me let me do what questions, should I ask about puzzles. So, And are you just doing is Google is that the robot? No. So, again, this website I made to keep track of Idealist, notepad.com, allows AI to finish your, okay. So here's what the AI came up with. Okay. I'm excited. What is the objective of a puzzle? Great question, AI. Yeah. You are super can can you kick out James? Because we don't need him anymore. Uh-huh. But but then it asks also questions like, what are the rules of the so it thinks I'm talking about one puzzle. What else does it ask? Okay. What questions should I ask about strategies What about riddle? Puzzles. I'm enter oh, yeah. The strategies for solving. That's good. But you asked good ones about that. What about something we haven't talked about yet, like riddles? Or Or how about this? What questions should I ask AJ Jacobs? Let's see if it knows let's see if it knows who you are. I like that. So it's hooked up to Google and the Internet. How has your work as a human guinea pig affected your life? Thank you for asking, AI. An excellent question. Well, it has made my life better overall because I do think the more experiments you do in life, the more interesting takeaways. And they can be painful at times, while you're doing them, but I love doing experiments. I'm actually doing one right now, so just to pause on puzzles for a second. Have you what is your take on talking to yourself, James? Are you a fan? You mean out loud? Or Yes. Yeah. Out loud? I don't I don't I don't do it. I I don't think I've thought about it. I have a problem, though, where I will if something's bothering me, I can't help but, like, blurt out what I'm thinking. Interesting. And but that's in public. Well, that's with other people, or that's With other people, I can't help it. And, like, my kids used to say like, if they had friends over and I would do that, like, my kids used to to have to tell their friends, like, oh, he just does that sometimes. Well, Yeah. That isn't that is a whole other That's a dumb thing. So but but tell me what you mean by talking to yourself. Like like, inspirational talking? Like, cheer up. I'm I'm just no. I just instead of keeping my thoughts to myself while I'm alone, I'll just say them. I'll say, you know, I'm thinking about, what I should do over the weekend or what I should have for dinner. And the what I like, I'm trying it for a week, and we'll see if I keep it. But what I like about it is a lot of times, my mind will go to weird, dark, negative spaces, and, you know, ruminate about silly things. I can't believe this guy didn't call me back. What an a*****e. And then when I say it out loud and I hear myself, then I'm able to say, oh, you know what? That's that's a waste of time. Don't stop thinking like that. Stop, you know, stop being a sniveling baby. Let's, let's think of something more interesting. So that's that's the advantage. We'll see if it's worth looking like a crazy person. So, here's what the AI says. I asked the AI, is it good to talk to yourself? And it says, talking to yourself can be a form of self reflection, which can be helpful in order to understand and process your own thoughts and feelings. AI And and process them out loud. You and I are on the same wavelength AI. You are good. I love that. I love the AI. So what what puzzles did you enjoy the most? Well, I loved learning about new genres that I knew nothing about. So, first of all, jigsaws, I didn't know that there were so many wild variations. I didn't know much about riddles. And that's one of the things I liked writing the book is I got to include there are hundreds of puzzles in the book, including new ones, and a contest, which we can talk about at some other point, like an actual contest secret in the book, and you have to find it. And if you solve it, you get $10,000, the first one to solve. And by the way, you don't have to buy the book. The this the code is in the introduction, which will be online at thepuzzler.com. So no purchase necessary, but, but that is in the book. So anyway, I loved learning about new types of puzzles. Riddles, I had never given much thought to, but I ran across these people who, spend their their professors, like, actual endowed professors who spend their lives analyzing riddles from the Middle Ages. Can I give you one? I don't know if you remember this one, but this one is one of the ones that they study. Because what's interesting is these were written in 1100 by monks, but the twist is some of them are very, very naughty, like, just super dirty. So, you know, it's still, still PG 13, but let me just tell you. Here's the riddle. What am I? My stem is erect. I stand up in bed, hairy down below. An attractive peasant's daughter grips me, plunders my head, and feels my encounter. This woman with braided hair gets her eye wet. So what am I? I mean, there's all sorts of, like, dirty things it could be, I guess. Yes. But get your mind out of the gutter. I mean, that's the beauty of it. It is not a dirty answer because the the monks wanted to trick you. They wanted to say, oh. So, the answer is, I'll give you one hint. The end, it says, her eye so, when you're dealing with this thing, your eye is wet. So you you're crying. You're crying when you're dealing with this, and it's But hair down below Well, it's not I mean, it's metaphorical hair, so it's like, you know, the stringy part of a certain vegetable that, makes you. Oh, I don't know. Tell me. Cry. What vegetable? What vegetable makes you cry? It's an onion. You got it with no hints whatsoever. No. But you you can see a no hints. But, I know I didn't know an onion had hair down below. Well, if you see an onion that's, you know, not been processed, it's kinda got that stringy stuff. That assumes I do any see, I I only see vegetables in stores after they've already been processed completely. They've been processed. They've been grown here, sent to China, processed, sent back here, shipped to a grocery store, and that is the first time I lay eyes on them. So you're not a medieval monk. Okay. That is good to know. You know, you said something in the beginning when you were talking about the MIT puzzles. The the the question arose, which is if these people are so smart, why are they wasting their time doing puzzles? And I think a lot about this because it seems like there are some activities where you're allowed to ask that question. Meaning let's say let's say you meet someone who all day long, that's what they do. They do puzzles. Will shorts all day long. He does puzzles and things about puzzles. So, you know, for some reason, it's acceptable to ask someone who who does puzzles, why are you doing this when you could, it's just something kids do or whatever? People say but, like, then nobody asked this of, like, you know, the marketing manager for Crest toothpaste. Like, oh, if you're so smart, like, why are you just doing marketing for Crest toothpaste? Like, I guess because a paycheck sort of is a is it considered a valid reason. Like, if you get a weekly paycheck or whatever, a regular paycheck, it's considered a valid reason to do something. Whereas puzzles, maybe someone is is not making as much money as they could be because they love spending 20 hours a week doing puzzles. And I I think about this a lot because lately, I've been playing chess a lot. And, of course, you asked the question like, oh, isn't that just a game? Like, why are you doing that? So I I feel, though, they're it's just a valid activity as anything else. Like, what's what's the problem? With you. Well, first of all, I love that you're playing chess again. And as you know, and you can cut this out if you want, I want you to write a book, like, what chess has taught me about life or why why chess is good, because I think that would be fascinating. No. I I think to itself. Yeah. And I think I think what I've been doing, the whole process of coming back to it as an adult Mhmm. That I will I and this is an AJ style book because I'm immersing myself in. That I will probably do. And, also, you know who also is really encouraging on this is, Robert Green. He's like, oh my god. This is an amazing book. Like, you have to do this. So And he sold, like, you know, 1,000,000 more than me, so he knows what he's talking about. You've you've sold millions. You've sold your millions. You're nice. But I think it's a fascinating question, and it's a it's got a long history. Like, you look, there have always been people who say every time that there's a puzzle craze, they're like, oh my god. I can't when crosswords were invented in 1913, all of these newspapers were publishing them, but even back then, The Times was a little snooty, and they refused to publish them. They thought it was too lowbrow, and instead, they published articles. It is hilarious to see the articles in the twenties thirties that crosswords were like a dangerous vice. They are like a reefer. Like, people were, you know, they caused arguments and breaks up of marriage, the murders. There were jailhouse riots they covered. People going blind from crossword puzzles. So it was like this panic, this moral panic about crossword puzzles. But now then they totally did a 180 and they, in 1942, started doing crosswords. And now they're like the go to place for puzzles. And I think you see this in every technology. You see you know, when books came out, I was like, oh my god. I can't believe they're gonna ruin the world. Or even up to Google. Like, everyone thought Google was gonna make us stupid because, oh, you know, you don't have to know facts anymore. God forbid, you didn't know, like, a a fact, and now you have to Google it. But, you know, of course, there's always the next evolution in thinking. Like, you have to now understand the facts and use them wisely as opposed to just knowing them. Exactly. And same with puzzles. I think, you know, quite the opposite from ruining our minds, they are, sharpening our minds. So there's always been this tension because even when puzzles started like, the first puzzle book of the 1600 was called sharpening the minds of the youth. So there's always this tension between puzzles are the savior, the thing that's gonna make us smarter, versus the puzzles are what is going to turn our brains into oatmeal. But, you know, I guess there's, like, there's the potential to get obsessed with puzzles, though, because they are fun, and they do release dopamine. And you could get addicted to that dopamine of, oh, I solved another Sudoku puzzle. I gotta keep going until I get harder and harder. And then, you know, you look at, like, Marcel Duchamp, who you mentioned in the book. Famous artist. He was on his way to having, like, the most amazing artistic career on the planet. And at the age of 36, he basically retired for the next 30 years just to solve chess puzzles. I I know. Right. That like anything, it can be addictive. And once you get to that point, then it does actually harm your life. And there was I mean, one of the most interesting characters I met was this guy whose last two years of his life were spent obsessing over a single puzzle. And it's a famously difficult puzzle. It's sort of a math logic puzzle. It's sort of like the, Monty Hall puzzle, which you probably know Yeah. Where but it's, like, a 1000 times harder and more complex, and it has it has spawned 100 actual philosophy papers in real philosophy, and it's called the Sleeping Beauty Problem. I'm not going to give it because it's too weird and complicated, but if you Google Sleeping Beauty Problem, just promise me you won't spend 2 years because this guy, he spent 2 years. He said he was staring at the wall for 8 hours a day thinking about it, and his wife was freaking out and saying, you know, this is not good for you. It's it's, that problem actually is almost worthy of an entire podcast because I am a 100% a halfer, and I know you're a thirder. You're a halfer? I'm a halfer. Wow. I don't interested. You know why? And I'll just people should Google this problem, but it so I won't take more than a minute on this. But tell me if you disagree. As opposed to the Monty Hall problem, we're in the middle of the problem, new information is given, which changes the answer. There's no new information given in the Sleeping Beauty problem, so the odds remain the same as at the beginning of the problem. That is the perfect half or argument, and I still don't buy it. I still don't buy it because if you are told at the beginning of the problem, all of the parameters, then I still do think you would be a 3rder. But listen, this is way over my head. I mean, these are people who, spend their lives they're professional mathematicians, and they still argue about it. So you could be right. I don't know. Oh, oh, I guess I could see the 3rd or side, which is that, if she's asked what day it is Mhmm. Then it's a much more complicated problem, And that's related to the odds. Like, then it's not so clear that the, that you, she should treat it like a 5050 situation. Well, one thing I love about that problem and some problems like it is that if you work at it, you can see both sides. And that is another important mental skill, being able to see the world from 2 different sides. And we talked about that on our mini show, good or bad, how to Yeah. How important it is to see the world from someone else's point of view. And flexibility. I mean, that is another huge theme of this puzzle adventure is cognitive flexibility. That's the only way you're gonna solve the hard problems. And I do think become attached. Practicing puzzles bill is good exercise. Like, you are exercising that whatever muscle it is in the brain for cognitive flexibility, like, that is insanely valuable. Totally. And so, like, what's other like, again, I like I recommended earlier, you have to do something to learn something, but what's a good way people could think about how to how to be cognitively flexible? Well, I do think puzzles are great practice, but even when you're, when you're not doing puzzles, I think it's important to, assign a probability to your beliefs, and this is related sort of Bayesian thinking. So don't say, you know, it is when my wife I actually do this maybe to the extreme. So if my wife says calls me and says, what time are you gonna be home? I'll say, there's a 60% chance I'll be home by 7, but there's a 30% chance I'll be home by I feel like all of your books in part are methods for you to annoy Julie, but but then you have an excuse. This is what I I'm getting paid to do this. I'm just doing this. And so you you chose a career It's my job. That's just designed to annoy your wife. So Well, you know that she did get, like, all these readers emailed and said, you have to do a month where you do everything your wife says. So she did have that month a few years ago of, like, whatever it was, foot rubs and That's funny. But but that is, yeah, that's taking it perhaps to the extreme. But when you are looking at any complex issue, think in probabilities. Don't think in black and white and certainties and uncertainties. Think in shades. I also like your re reverse strategy. So, like, do the opposite of what is expected. So for instance, in the Gauss situation, he didn't add up the numbers in order. He came up with a completely unique way of adding these numbers up so that it becomes trivial to solve the problem. Or in in chess, in a game, there's often, like there's one move. It looks like I just cannot make that move. And most people will never think about the move because you you're not supposed to make that kind of move. Sacrificing your queen. Start by thinking of that move instead of just automatically discounting it. So so this reversal thinking works in in all sorts of puzzles. Absolutely. Yeah. Do the unexpected. As you say, in all types of puzzles, there's, I covered Japanese puzzle boxes, which are these wooden boxes that sometimes cost 1,000 of dollars. And to solve them, you have to do what's totally unexpected. So, you know, you expect you try to open it. Just it's a box. You try to open the lid. Nothing. So you have to do things like you have to spin the spin the box, and and then it releases. Sometimes you have to freeze it. That's another one that's crazy. So, sometimes it won't open until you freeze it. So, yeah, do something that with the box that you never thought of. Yeah. Or or and, like, with with with riddles or crossword puzzles, it's never the obvious answer. Like like, in the riddle you just said with the monks and the girl, like, you know, it's never the obvious, like, oh, this is a whatever. Right. It's a vegetable. So it's a cookbook. You ever see that Twilight Zone? They're trying to Oh, sure. Yeah. So That is well, it has a lot like you say, it has a lot of in common with great, stories and great fiction because that also has a twist at the end. Yeah. Actually, if you think about it, right, every novel is a puzzle because it's like the most obvious example being a mystery novel. Who who did it? And the reader is constantly trying to figure out who did it by the end. And the challenge of the author is really, like, the same as the challenge of a puzzle maker, which is not make it too obvious, but not make it too difficult. But, again, it's a it's a fine line because you don't want them to figure it out until the author wants it to be revealed. So Right. It's a it's a in in all mystery, basically, the the more interesting and and well thought out the mystery is in a novel, usually, the more successful that novel is. So, like, the best mystery novels, the one we do we know best are by the authors who are the the best at making these puzzles. Right. But what you said, I think, is set there's a sweet spot. And the guy who made the puzzles for this book, because they're 20 original puzzles, very hard, very interesting, he said the easiest thing in the world is to make a puzzle that's impossible that no one can solve, and it's also pretty easy to make a totally simple puzzle, but you gotta find the sweet spot where it's just hard enough that you can solve it, but that you are given this challenge, this sort of period where you're frustrated. You're like you're like and then you get to that revelation at the end. You know, I'm I'm surprised you didn't or maybe you did cover. I don't I don't remember. You know, like, Google interview questions. Like, Google kind of mastered the art of asking puzzles as questions. And they they don't always expect the potential employees to have the right answers, but they wanna see the thinking process. Right. Well, I did actually it's not, a major part, but I did talk about and give an example of Fermi problems, which is sort of the official name for a lot of the Google interview type questions where they ask, how many piano tuners are there in Chicago? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Right. Okay. And, and the way to solve those is a very important tool for all types of thinking, which is if you if you just take a wild guess, like, you know, 28 thousand, then it's gonna be off by orders of magnitude, most likely. So the best way to do it is to break it down into small chunks. How many people live in Chicago? How many people on average what percentage of people on average have pianos? How often do pianos need to be tuned? How many pianos can a piano tuner tune in one day? And then even if you're off on each of those guesses, the end is gonna be closer than just a random guess. Well, this reminds me of a famous podcast we did, I believe, in 2015 where, and you you would I it was based on a Facebook post you did, which went insanely viral. And and it was basically Anne Colt. You were watching some show. You were you're obsessed with Anne Coulter, and you're watching her on TV. And she said something was said relating to Israel, and she said, well, how many effing Jews are there anyway? And she used the full word for effing. And and you said, well, let's figure this out. How many Jews are having sex right now around the world? And you you used that exact technique and did this Facebook post, and it got, like, a 1000000 shares, and we did a podcast about it. That is so funny. I totally forgotten that that is a Fermi problem. Yes. How many Jews are having sexual intercourse at, at any given moment? Yeah. That is so funny. So so, look, AJ, this is I really enjoy this book, because, a, it has all the AJ components of you sort of putting yourself in these crazy situations, and then things happen. You're like I don't I don't wanna use the word nerdy because it's not that, but you're like I am a proud nerd. I'm okay with that. But it's like a okay. It's like a nerdy version of what Hunter s Thompson does. So, like, Hunter s Thompson will, like, load up on drugs, every drug possible, and then go to the Democratic National Convention, and things happen. You take yourself and your quirky personality. You don't need any drugs. You take your quirky personality and go to the MIT puzzle solving competition, or you represent the US in the jigsaw puzzle competition and and on and on. And it's such a it's such a great genre that you've mastered, that you're you're the only person, and you're you've you've uniquely mastered it. And it's always enjoyable to read your stories, but there's so much to learn. You always pack it in with so much knowledge, which which what what's clever about that is you give people many ways to like a story or like a book. So they might maybe they like it. Maybe they're not interested in genealogy, but they wanna see how you found, you know, the did the world's largest family reunion and how you found all your cousins or, you know, or maybe they don't care about your story at all, and they wanna read all about the history of all these different puzzles and strategies for doing these puzzles and interviews with the people who are the world champions of these puzzles. And so there's multiple ways for people to like your your books. You are better at explaining my books than I am. Well, I always try to break down your your approach. Yeah. Well, I listen. I can't wait for the James Altiger chess book. But in the meantime, yes, please. If you're interested, buy the Puzzler or you can read the intro, which I, contains the secret code on the Puzzler book dot com. And and I hope it's the intro isn't enough to make you wanna actually buy the book. And and win $10,000 in the process, potentially. Whether are you gonna announce a winner at some point, or, or is it just the first person who solves the puzzle? It is the first person who solves the well, what happens is in the intro, the you you have to figure out there's a passcode. There's a a phrase that will be revealed in the introduction, and it's hidden. It's secret. But once you do that, then you actually have to put that passcode into a box in the PuzzlerBook.com. And that is your passcode to a a whole forest of crazy creative puzzles that I did not make, that my friends from the MIT Mystery Hunt made. And they are hard, but they are fun and weird and fascinating. And the first one to finish all of those puzzles, there are over 20 of them, so you have to work for your money, then that person gets the 10,000. This is this is great. Such a great idea for a book too. Well, good luck. We'll we'll do we should do a good or bad about puzzles as well in our good or bad series. And what can we let I want, you got me going. I wanna compete again on something. Like, is there a a website we can compete on Sudoku? Like, we could race to finish a bunch of Sudoku about kick my a*s I might not. I played Sudoku in a while. No. But you've just got the mind you've got the mathematical mind or the logical mind that is gonna trounce me. I'll do it. I'll be embarrassed, and I'll beg Jay to take I I think I could definitely if I share my screen, I'm I'm pretty decent at spelling bee and alright. Here. I have spelling bee. I haven't I usually do it first thing in the morning, even in the middle of the night sometimes. I'm gonna have to try this. Do you say is that the New York Times site? Yeah. It's very addictive. Very I don't want you to try it. Stay with chess because you've got gotta write I got a book. I got a book to write, then I'll get obsessed with this. Exactly. But, alright. So so what's the next book? It's not gonna be about talking to yourself, is it? I don't think so. That might be an Harvey Bill who knows. I haven't decided. I have been still focused on puzzles. I'm always counting on you because you are an idea machine, so you're always giving me great ideas. The thing you should do, though, is you should now make some puzzle books. Like, you should make right. You told me I had to do that Yeah. To monetize. Yeah. Right. And that's, like, a no brainer because Will Short has written over 500 books of crossword puzzles with Sudoku, and those are probably computer generated, some of them. Right. So Exactly. And now you're gonna have a brand name in the puzzle space. You should totally do puzzles. And we'll make a puzzle site. And maybe invent your own puzzles. Because look. That guy who made KenKen, I I wonder what he's worth now because he's, like, you know, he basically created a whole genre of puzzle. I know he should be. Maybe he was worth well, he's he's kind of like he's funny because he's kinda like a monk. All he cares about is the artistry. He doesn't care about money or so it seems. Alright. Well, AJ, say hi to Julie and the kids, and we should definitely do, good or bad sometime soon. Maybe this month is getting pretty booked, and you and you have your this book coming out on April 26th, but let's plan on May doing some good or bads. Do do we have any good or bads left to release? We have a couple. I'll have to listen to see if they are releasable. But, yeah, we might be able to squeeze a couple more, but I'm also up for new new ones if you are. Yeah. No. Definitely. Cool. Well Alright. AJ, that was nice. Love the book. It was really great book. Like Thank you, James. Thank you. To recommend it. So That means a lot. Alright. Alright. See you guys later. Sounds good. Bye bye.
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