A mere 107 years ago (1906):
The average life expectancy in the U.S. was 47 years. Only 14 percent of the homes in the U.S. had a bathtub. Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone. A three minute phone call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars. There were only 8,000 cars in the U.S., and only 144 miles of paved roads. The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph. Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California. With a mere 1.4 million people, California was only the 21st most populous state in the Union. The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower! The average wage in the U.S. was 22 cents per hour. The average U.S. worker made between $200 and $400 per year. A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, a dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year. More than 95 percent of all births in the U.S. took place at HOME. Ninety percent of all U.S. doctors had NO COLLEGE EDUCATION! Instead,they attended so-called medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press AND the government as "substandard." Sugar cost four cents a pound. Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen. Coffee was fifteen cents a pound. Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo. Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from entering into their country for any reason. Five leading causes of death in the U.S. were: 1. Pneumonia and influenza 2. Tuberculosis 3. Diarrhea 4. Heart disease 5. Stroke. The American flag had 45 stars. Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Alaska hadn't been admitted to the Union yet. The population of Las Vegas, Nevada, was only 30!!!! Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and ice tea hadn't been invented yet. There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day. Two out of every 10 U.S. adults couldn't read or write. Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school. Eighteen percent of households in the U.S. had at least one full-time servant or domestic help. There were about 230 reported murders in the ENTIRE ! USA !
THE CHALLENGE:
Using clues hidden in plain view within this listing along with your powers of deductive reasoning, you will identify a business having 6 physical locations in Madison County. Using your math skills, you will compute the individual flight speeds of 12 crows using the data listed above and the formulas provided below. Using the provided flight times from the 6 business locations to the cache, and the median speed of the 12 crows, you will determine the location of the cache. Each of the 6 locations have large surface areas, however all six have a feature or object common amongst them. The coordinates of these objects will be the starting point of our six crows as they take flight and travel directly to the final cache (i.e. "as the crow flies") If, by deductive reasoning you succeed in identifying the correct object and measure (or estimate) its location carefully, your computed search area for the crow's nest will be relatively small. I will tell you now, the object you seek is not the sign out front, its not the front door, its not a lamppost, its not, well, you get the idea. Let's get the math out of the way for now, and you can worry about this little detail later. (You may even have an epifany while cipering, however it is more likely that a visit to each location will be needed to achieve enlightenment.)
NOTE: Round all computed speeds to the nearest tenth of a mile per hour.
Crow A: The number of reported murders in the U.S. divided by the population of Las Vegas. ____ . __ mph.
Crow B: The maximum speed limit in most U.S. cities plus the number of states today that were not in the union then. ____ . __ mph.
Crow C: The percentage of high school graduates times the average annual income of the average U.S. worker. ____ . __ mph.
Crow D: The number of illnesses reported as the 5 leading causes of death in the U.S. times the length of an eleven dollar phone call from Denver to New York City. ____ . __ mph.
Crow E: The Monthly income of a dentist times the percentage of households with a bathtub. ____ . __ mph.
Crow F: The number of miles of paved roads in the U.S.times the percentage of households with servants or domestic help. ____ . __ mph.
Crow G: Two pounds of coffee plus an egg. ____ . __ mph.
Crow H: The percentage of births that occurred at home, times the number of stars on the American flag. ____ . __ mph.
Crow I: An Accountant's annual salary divided by the product of 2.5 and the average life expectancy in the U.S. ____ . __ mph.
Crow J: The average hourly wage in the U.S. plus five pounds of sugar times the percentage of Americans who were not illiterate. ____ . __ mph.
Crow K: The population of California times the percentage of homes with a telephone, divided by the number of cars in the U.S. ____ . __ mph.
Crow L: The cost, per minute, of a long distance call from Denver to New York City times the ratio of a Mechanical Engineer's salary to an Accountant's salary, PLUS the ratio of a Beverly Hills Veterinarian and a Vet from New Market. ____ . __ mph.
Use the calculated speed and the flight times below to determine the location of the cache:
Crow #1 Departs his location and flies directly to the cache in 27 Minutes, 40 seconds.
Crow #2 Departs his location simultaneously and flies directly to the cache in 20 Minutes, 18 seconds.
Crow #3 Departs his location simultaneously and flies directly to the cache in 11 Minutes, 18 seconds.
Crow #4 Departs his location simultaneously and flies directly to the cache in 12 Minutes, 12 seconds.
Crow #5 Departs his location simultaneously and flies directly to the cache in 25 Minutes, 44 seconds.
Crow #6 Departs his location simultaneously and flies directly to the cache in 39 Minutes, 38 seconds.
By now you have (hopefully) determined the coordinates of the 6 departure points. You must now determine which crow departed from which location. Only one solution set will yield a meaningful location of the crow's nest (or search POINT if you are really good)
If it helps you visualize the final solution, think of the crows as being identical signals, transmitted from 6 different GPS satellites. The GPS receiver calculates its position on Earth by calculating its distance from each satellite based on the speed of light (or in this case, the speed of crow) and the time it took for the signal (crow) to arrive.
Once you determine the location of the nest of this murder of crows, you have one last bit of work to do in order to locate the final cache location. It seems that crow "B" is a bit of a rogue, and something of a night owl. In the middle of the night, crow "B" departs the nest and flys at his own unique speed for 18 minutes and 12 seconds. Due to limited visibility, at the end of his flight he crashes and burns while crossing meridian 86° 31.635'. The ants and the elements have long since consumed to corpse of dearly departed crow "B", but a cache container has been place here in his memory. Your final objective is am ammo box, which may or may not be painted to match the local terrain (No, don't bother asking what color, I won't tell you). IF you are searching the right area it should be an easy find. Please do not conceal the cache with rocks, dirt, leaves, palm fronds, trash, dead animals, chunks of asphalt, or any other materials that might be indigenous to the hide site.
You can check your answers for this puzzle on GeoChecker.com - Fuzzy Solution (within 100 ft).
You can check your answers for this puzzle on GeoChecker.com - Tighter solution (within 25ft).
THE RULES:
Each individual geocacher will be afforded 4 opportunities to contact the cache owner and verify one or more of the following items: The name and general location of the 6 business sites. The common object of interest at the business site. The computed Crow speed used to calculate the six distances to the cache. The computed coordinates for the final cache location. Use your allocated contact opportunities wisely! Hints will NOT be given and any requests for hints will count as a verification contact.
Anyone posting irrelevant "Notes" to the cache page, spoiler logs, pictures of the final cache or its location, pictures or descriptions of the 6 starting points, and those trespassing to hunt the cache or otherwise violating locally accepted geocaching practices and principles will irrevocably forfeit the right to log this cache as a find. Public access to the cache is available, therefore crossing private, residential or posted property (with OR without permission) will also result in a denied find. Nagging the owner or previous finders for hints or cache solutions may disqualify seachers at the sole disgression of the cache owner.
The logbook in the cache must be signed and dated and the cache must be rehidden as found, where found.