Dewey Decimal System Day (Holiday Hoopla 2023)
| Dewey Decimal System Day | |
|---|---|
| Holiday Hoopla 2023 | |
| Answer | Click to revealGENRE |
| Statistics | |
| No. solves | 69 |
| No. total guesses | 125 |
| Links | |
| Puzzle | Link |
Dewey Decimal System Day is a logic puzzle from Holiday Hoopla 2023. Its difficulty level is categorized as Medium relative to the other puzzles in the hunt.
The puzzle is presented as a series of images of books on shelves.
Solve Path[edit | edit source]
Each book has a title and a decimal number below it.
The flavor text indicates that "some books are mislabeled." Searching up the titles of some of the books in the puzzle reveals that the book titles are fictitious.
However, it is still possible to infer what the books are about and verify if they are correctly classified according to the the Dewey Decimal System.
Solvers can use various resources to check the category associated with each decimal number. The solution below will use links to LibraryThing.com.
| Book | Title | Dewey Decimal Number | Category Associated with Number | Correctly Classified? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | There are Three Holes in a Pretzel: An Introduction to Topology | 001.98 | Conspiracy Theories | No |
| 2 | Are You Financially Stable? Introduction to Microeconomics | 003.52 | Perception Theory | No |
| 3 | Two Paradigms of Computer Languages | 005.13 | Computer Programming Languages | Yes |
| 4 | Types of Public Libraries in the US | 027.47 | Public Libraries in North America | Yes |
| 5 | Of Age: Psychological Research on Growing Adolescents | 155.51 | General Adolescent Psychology | Yes |
| Book | Title | Dewey Decimal Number | Category Associated with Number | Correctly Classified? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nonfiction and Education: Effective Use of Literature in the Classroom | 174.25 | Bioethics | No |
| 2 | Books Unearthed: Historical Records of Ancient Architecture | 199.66 | Philosophy of West Africa | No |
| 3 | In God's Name: Religion in the Classroom | 200.71 | Religious Education, Curricula | Yes |
| 4 | The Evolution of Fantasy: Myths and Folklores | 248.85 | Christian Living for the Elderly | No |
| 5 | Shelves of Policies: Democracy in the United States | 320.97 | Political Situation and Conditions (North America) | Yes |
| Book | Title | Dewey Decimal Number | Category Associated with Number | Correctly Classified? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ones and Zeros: The Spread of Digital Information | 345.73 | U.S. Criminal Law | No |
| 2 | That Calls for a Celebration: Social Customs at Mardi Gras | 394.25 | Carnival Holiday | Yes |
| 3 | Match in Meaning: Linguistic Semantics | 401.43 | Semantics | Yes |
| 4 | Their, There, They're: Understanding Grammar | 428.24 | English as a Second Language - Applied Linguistics | Yes |
| 5 | Number Theory: Of Integers and Functions | 493.10 | Old Egyptian Philology | No |
| Book | Title | Dewey Decimal Number | Category Associated with Number | Correctly Classified? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Category 5: Catastrophic Hurricanes | 551.55 | Storms | Yes |
| 2 | And The Music Played On: A Melodic Journey Through History | 567.90 | Dinosaurs | No |
| 3 | Those Same Differences: American Cultural Diaspora | 599.86 | Old World Monkeys | No |
| 4 | Which Foods Should I Put in My Body? A Guide to Eating Healthier | 613.21 | Dietaries | Yes |
| 5 | Don't Plagiarize: How to Cite Sources Properly | 690.83 | Conventional Housing | No |
| Book | Title | Dewey Decimal Number | Category Associated with Number | Correctly Classified? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Use the Correct Tools: Guidebook for Household Cleaning | 759.03 | The Renaissance Period | No |
| 2 | Library of Autonomy: The Emergence of Self-driving Vehicles | 782.14 | Musicals | No |
| 3 | Thing of Destiny: Unraveling Themes of Greek Literature | 880.93 | Themes and Subjects of Greek Literature | Yes |
| 4 | Melvil: An Autobiography | 880.01 | Classic Greek Literature | No |
| 5 | Site Seekers: Exploring the Wonders of Manchuria | 915.18 | Geography of Manchuria and Travel in Manchuria | Yes |
The second sentence in the flavor text tells solvers "Finally for each shelf base, two is the magic number." It is possible to interpret each shelf of books as a base-2 (binary) number, where each correctly-classified book is represented as 1 and as 0 otherwise.
Solvers can convert each shelf's five-digit binary number to its decimal value and subsequently use A1Z26 to extract a letter.
| Shelf | Correctly Classified? | As Binary | Value in Decimal | A1Z26 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | No, No, Yes, Yes, Yes | 00111 | 7 | G |
| 2 | No, No, Yes, No, Yes | 00101 | 5 | E |
| 3 | No, Yes, Yes, Yes, No | 01110 | 14 | N |
| 4 | Yes, No, No, Yes, No | 10010 | 18 | R |
| 5 | No, No, Yes, No, Yes | 00101 | 5 | E |
These letters spell out the answer Click to revealGENRE.
Puzzle Elements[edit | edit source]
Dewey Decimal System - This is the theme of this puzzle.
Binary - Extraction makes use of 5-bit binary.
