Earlier this week I learned a little about heterogeneous catalysis at a bar, and now here I am reading about gravitational lensing, modified Newtonian dynamics, and entropic gravity because I did a Thursday crossword puzzle ... What is to become of me?
But seriously, it's all too rare that science works its way into a crossword, and today's [DARKMATTER] PHYSICS theme seems tailor-made for such a crossover. The missing letters do not account for 85% of the puzzle (thank goodness), as it is supposed dark matter does in the universe, but certain answers cannot be explained by currently accepted theories of spelling, and therefore imply the presence of missing elements. WORDED differently, the ten letters that spell DARK MATTER are missing, in order, from the beginning of ten Across answers. Some are left of the left edge, some are hidden in black squares. None have anything to do with Down answers. Also, elegantly, the grid appears to be complete without them, just as the universe appears to mostly make sense, but the clues - like the behavior of some galaxies - cause us to look more deeply for answers. Tidy.
OK, maybe I'll drop the whole "working from the Dark Matter Wikipedia page" thing now and just talk about the rest of the puzzle...
There's a lot to like here. DECKCHAIR (Seat on a ship) puts me in mind of summer, which is nice, as we in Massachusetts have some low temperatures INSTORE over the next day or so, and that will put some people into HYSTERICS. Me, I'm not too bothered by cold weather INGENERAL, but prolonged cold will EATAWAY at anyone's warmth, right?
AROUSER (One giving a wake-up call) is rough, and SARD (Orangish-brown gem) is decidedly "late-week," but the crosses were fair.
This was a fun one. Big thumbs up.
- Horace
p.s. Congratulations on the NYTX debut, Elise Corbin. What a way to break in! And for all of you who want more science-y crosswords, Elise has a blog for you.
An e-space-tially fine review, today, Horace, which is APT for this solid puzzle. I enjoyed the princess mini theme, but I went way off base at first with ‘Lady’ instead of LEIA at first. As a long-time studier of caveats in advertisements, I dropped CARAD right in. HYSTERICS is a good word with a troubled history. I also enjoyed SPAREME and WENTALLIN.
ReplyDeleteYep, I appreciated and enjoyed it as well (and also the review) before even spelling out the missing letters. Glad I resisted my initial temptation to turn it into a rebus and just went with the flow. Good show, Ms. Corbin!
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