Scott Duke Kominers, Columnist

Kominers’s Conundrums: Maps Can Be Quite Mysterious

Even a simple atlas can turn into an enthralling puzzle. Just drop the labels.

August 8, 2020 at 12:00 PM UTC

Scott Duke Kominers is the MBA Class of 1960 Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and a faculty affiliate of the Harvard University department of economics.

Solve the first in a blink. The second, though, may be a little more challenging.
Photographer: Hill Street Studios/Digital Vision

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Once you really get into puzzles, you start seeing them in everyday objects.1 Even a simple atlas can turn into a Conundrum: Without the labels, you’re left scratching your head trying to figure out what the symbols represent.

This week we’re looking at two such mysterious maps, created in collaboration with one of my students who goes by the nom de plume Spaceman Spiff. Each one plots some structured information, and your challenge is to figure out what the points represent.