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William, how many numbers? Mystery Cache

This cache has been archived.

=Andy_R: Time to say goodbye...

For those interested the theme of this was Indian Numbering system. The inspiration for this cache came from a More or Less podcast, which discussed a mistake made when quoting suicide figures of Indian farmers in the Western press. The figure for farmer suicides was quoted as 2.7 million since 1995, when it was really 2.7 lakh, or 270,000 (which is still very high, and a slightly morbid subject). A lakh had been misread as one million because of the confusing placement of commas in Indian numbers. If you notice in the Indian figures the first comma is placed before the last 3 zeroes, thereafter they separate every two zeroes reading right to left.

The full solution
The title was taken from the quote "William, how many numbers is in nouns?" from Merry Wives of Windsor [IV, 1, 1909], which should have led you to the fact that I'd hidden numbers in the nouns in each quote (and which is also why the quotes were edited strangely). You may notice that the hidden numbers are written in a very slightly different font. The chief clue was intended to be the word scrore instead of score. Googling crore should have led you to Indian numbering system from which you calculate the coordinates.

The other theme of the puzzle was of course Shakespeare quotes. I included a Related Web Page for you to track them down. Shakespeare quotes are often referenced Play [Act, Scene, Lines] and in this puzzle I'd given the wrong line numbers which (I hoped) was a clue to using line numbers in the decode, in particular the digits specified by the incorrect reference.

So what did you need to to do? Identify the hidden numbers. Find the real line number (using the Related Web Page) that corresponded to the word in which Indian number was hidden, use the fake line numbers to select digits from the real line numbers, multiply by the hidden Indian number, and add them up. Simples! Or at least I thought so back when I created it. As it turned it out this is one of my hardest and least solved puzzles. I'm not sure whether or not to be proud of that. 😟

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Hidden : 4/3/2013
Difficulty:
5 out of 5
Terrain:
2 out of 5

Size: Size:   micro (micro)

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Geocache Description:

Not at the published coordinates, read the following to solve the puzzle.



Start with 51.



There are nano certificates for the first 9 finders.

Additional Hints ()

[Puzzle:] 1. TP478ZR 2. Vs lbh pna'g frr jung lbh ner ybbxvat sbe lbh znl arrq fgebatre tynffrf (be hfr gur yvax cebivqrq). [Decode:] yvar [Cache:] Frr Trbpurpx.

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)

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