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Inspired by @DEEM's Grandpa Mystery puzzles (e.g. here and here). Be sure to check them out!

Now we all know that Grandpa is a genius... but sometimes he says the most absurd things!

Today he told me:

Did you know that $6$ is prime?

I replied:

$6$ is not a prime number, as it is equal to $3\times 2$. Oh wait, are you referring to the gesture your friend showed you nearly last week?

He then made one final reply before he went off to have a brownie:

No. I never said number.

What is Grandpa trying to say?

Hint.

20 minutes later...

I walked up to Grandpa. Why was it taking so long for him to finish his brownie? I soon found out he fell asleep at the table.

Grandpa, wake up! I think I might know how $6$ is prime. If I am right, then you are very clever!

He suddenly jolted upwards and said:

What? You might think it's a letter? No no no no no.

And he went back to snoring. Poor Grandpa. I think it is best I leave him alone, now. $$$$ Hint 2.

I began to steal one of his brownies as he was asleep, but that was when I heard him muttering to himself. He said:

Twins...

I had no idea what he meant by that, but when I looked at the brownies, they looked identical... like twins! So I just left them alone... $$$$ Hint 3. Last Hint before I will declare a 50 rep bounty.

When Grandpa woke up, I asked him:

Grandpa, what do you mean by prime?

He replied:

Well, how long did I rest for exactly?

I checked my watch, and said:

Just under a full hour.

He looked baffled and made one last reply before eating the last brownie I was going to save for myself:

Well, your watch could be wrong. I slept for just over 5 minutes. That's what I mean by prime.

But I wasn't wearing it when Grandpa first asked me this ridiculous question... $$$$ Super last hint.

Well, I know the secret now! I figured it out!

No, I'm not going to tell you the answer here. I'm just going to say my watch isn't wrong... I mean, it could have been, but now I know the answer. You see, you have to pay attention to the words. Grandpa said, "No. I never said a number," and it doesn't make sense because he just did, right? The number $6$. That was why I found it so confusing...

...but he did say, "No."

Told ya my Grandpa was a genius, and now the question is: What am I trying to say?

Mr Pie
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  • Hah... the title even rhymes :) – Mr Pie Sep 02 '18 at 03:23
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    Thanks for continuing the Grandpa Mysteries. My Grandpa thanks your Grandpa! – DrD Sep 02 '18 at 10:33
  • @DEEM I've always loved those Grandpa Mysteries, as much as my Grandpa loves brownies :D – Mr Pie Sep 02 '18 at 10:35
  • @downvoter may you please explain why you downvoted? Did I do something wrong or did you not like the riddle (because this might not be your taste)? I don't care about reputation — I just want to do what is right by the community :) – Mr Pie Sep 03 '18 at 07:31
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    Since you asked, I downvoted this just now, as I usually do, when things appear "seriously broken as written". By that I mean I am taking the point of view of someone coming in later (like myself), who just looks at the question as it currently stands, and the accepted answer as it currently stands. – deep thought Nov 28 '18 at 02:19
  • @deepthought okay. Thanks for sharing the thought. These kinds of comments help me improve :) – Mr Pie Dec 03 '18 at 10:18

6 Answers6

3

My sniper longshot

6 doesn't represent the number 6. That's why Grandpa says "No. I never said number (6)".

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We know it's not a letter and not a number, so we are left with symbols.

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Unicode U+212X is the third row of Unicode characters, if X is 6 we get Omega. Omega, in maths, is used to denote how many prime divisors a number has. So Grandpa is not saying 6, but Unicode 6 is prime.

Previous answers (none is the actual one)

Six has 3 letters. 3 is prime.

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6 = G => G = 7 and 7 is prime.

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TV Primetime. But it is between 8-11 PM.

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6 is between Twin Primes (5-7).

Nicolás Magno
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  • No, that's not it. The gesture statement refers to how $6=3$ (here), but Grandpa said no. Bad Grandpa :D – Mr Pie Sep 02 '18 at 03:25
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    Umm... Maybe rot13(T rdhnyf frira naq frira vf cevzr). Are the previous post necessary? I haven't read them. – Nicolás Magno Sep 02 '18 at 03:29
  • The previous post is only necessary for that part. Also, the rot13 is not correct, but it can pass! I might have to consequently add more to the puzzle for the intended answer... aannnnnd done! – Mr Pie Sep 02 '18 at 03:31
  • Thus far, you and @TheSimpliFire are on the best track to solving the answer. Each of your answers have something in common... – Mr Pie Sep 02 '18 at 10:44
  • Does it have to do with rot(GI cevzrgvzr)? Though rot13(GI cevzrgvzr vf orgjrra rvtug naq ryrira). – Nicolás Magno Sep 02 '18 at 11:45
  • Nope. All the information can be found in the question. Perhaps Rot13(gur jbeq lbh ner ybbxvat sbe va lbhe nafjre vf abg "cevzr". Gung pbzrf yngre...) :D – Mr Pie Sep 02 '18 at 11:49
  • Well, rot13(gjva cevzrf ner cevzr ahzoref gung unir n +/-2 qvssrerapr. Fvk vf n gjva cevzr, ohg nyfb rirel gjva cevzr nsgre 3-5 vf n zhygvcyr bs fvk). Makes sense with the phrase "just over 5". Otherwise, I'm totally lost. – Nicolás Magno Sep 02 '18 at 11:54
  • Alright. Hint 3 is the biggest hint of 'em all. $\ast$ (ROT13) Vg npghnyyl fubjf jung cevzr ahzore lbh jnag $6$ gb or rdhny gb. Abj lrf, Tenaqcn fnvq "V qvq abg fnl ahzore" ohg jr jrer yrsg jvgu "jung jnf ur gelvat gb fnl"? Guvf pbashfrf crbcyr nf vg znxrf crbcyr guvax gung jr ner abg gelvat gb znxr $6$ n cevzr ahzore... ohg jr ner. Vg vf whfg gung gb qb vg... jr pna'g hfr $6$ va cnegvphyne orpnhfr vg'f n ahzore. $\ast$ I have given away too much there, but my point is, I want you to look for a particular word and then make progress with that... :P – Mr Pie Sep 02 '18 at 11:59
  • I have now made a super last hint: Hint 4. This one indicates the rot13 above... – Mr Pie Sep 02 '18 at 12:18
  • That's not the answer, but I don't see why it can't be. This is brilliant (and I am familiar with the multiplicity omega function)! I'll explain the real answer in a "Making Of" answer to this, but either way, you definitely deserve a tick! I think this answer is better than the intended, hahah! I have reached my daily voting limit and have to wait $10$ hours before I can upvote (DVL10). Do you want me to award you the tick once I am ready to upvote, or just award it now? :D – Mr Pie Sep 02 '18 at 13:24
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    Let's give others some time to solve the real answer (including me :) ). – Nicolás Magno Sep 02 '18 at 13:29
  • You know what's funny? Rot13(Lbhe anzr vf Avpbynf, naq "Avpb" pna or sbhaq va "havpbqr" (hAVPBqr)) :D – Mr Pie Sep 02 '18 at 13:32
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    That means I am 6. Therefore, I am prime! Lol – Nicolás Magno Sep 02 '18 at 14:04
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As a wild guess,

Per Wikipedia, "Prime, or the First Hour, is a fixed time of prayer of the traditional Divine Office (Canonical Hours), said at the first hour of daylight (approximately 6:00 a.m.)". If Grandpa is Christian, he could mean that 6 am is time to say prime, as opposed to lauds or terce.

Although this matches only one of the tags...

Mariia Mykhailova
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  • I only used the knowledge tag for knowledge of prime numbers. Also, the letter X can stand for christ (or being christian), but no letters (on their own, that is) must be involved. It was a good try, though. I've added a second hint :) – Mr Pie Sep 02 '18 at 04:31
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    @user477343 Anything related to rot13(gjva cevzrf svir naq frira)? But then the other tag doesn't work out... – Mariia Mykhailova Sep 02 '18 at 06:00
  • It is related to that rot13, but not the particular pair of numbers you mentioned. Remember, that information is from the hints, not the actual riddle itself. One of the tags don't really work only because the hints have made it a little easier to directly solve. – Mr Pie Sep 02 '18 at 08:35
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Wrap-up: The Making Of $\,$$6$ is prime? Another Grandpa Mystery (not made by @DEEM, this time)

This is not a solution to the puzzle, but provides notes from its poser. This type of answer has been approved by the community.

Caution: This post may contain spoilers.

Inspiration

Well, firstly, thanks heaps to @DEEM for his/her Grandpa Mysteries. Those puzzles were in fact my inspiration. I don't really have a favourite tag, but I do watch out for rhyming riddles; though I have started to watch out for lateral-thinking because of these Grandpa puzzles! In fact, one of my personal favourites is this one, which is why I included the line, "Now we all know that Grandpa is a genius..." $$$$

Steps of Creation

I first began thinking about a number, and trying to find an interesting, whacky property about that number. Fortunately enough, it was the very first number I thought of: the number $6$. Now the accepted answer has been accepted, but that was not actually the intended answer. I accepted it because I really liked the answer, and it could have actually been the answer, too. I will not reveal the answer, here, but I hope the steps of the creation provide a big hint.

Because this was going to be the lateral-thinking type, I decided to try and find something useful in SIX and not $6$. And that's when I came up with the answer and made a Grandpa puzzle out of it. I then just started playing with words, realising that words like "No" can stand for "number" without you actually saying "number".

I worded it this way to make people think that $6$ is prime with definitions excluding prime number... but not necessarily. It's only a number if you refer to $6$ as a number (as opposed to a word). Even though the actual prime that $6$ is equal to is in fact a number, it is reached from knowing that $6$ is not referred to as a number, because numbers behave much more differently than words (even if they might mean the same thing; i.e., Eight = $8$ but Eight $\neq 2^3=8$).

After that, the following hints were just a bit of wordplay. Grandpa says "no" a lot in the Hint 1 from what I just mentioned. (And the last sentences in Hint 1 also have a cool property to reveal the actual prime number itself.) Time is also used for correspondence, and "twins" is also a clue. (Note that $20$ in "$20$ minutes later" sounds like "twin".) And then it gets a bit weird how the super last hint mainly refers to the actual puzzle and not the previous hints.

In the end, it all seemed to work well. $$$$

Resources

I just used DEEM's puzzles to kind of imitate the overall style of the Grandpa Mystery. $$$$

Takeaway

I am happy that I was able to make a decent Grandpa Mystery puzzle. Also, thanks to this post for the construction of this answer! :D

Mr Pie
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    And my Grandpa loved this puzzle. In fact he said that he is coming up with another one to acknowledge your puzzle. – DrD Sep 03 '18 at 11:22
  • @DEEM looking forward to it. In the meantime, Imma get some more brownies... – Mr Pie Sep 03 '18 at 13:18
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A simple answer is that:

Your Grandad is senile.

JMP
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Because:

Grandpa is in his sixties, so he is saying that $6$ is prime [the state or time of greatest vigour or success in a person's life].

ə̷̶̸͇̘̜́̍͗̂̄︣͟
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  • Close... it doesn't match Hint 2 and it's not about age, but there is an element of your answer that is close to arriving at the correct one :P – Mr Pie Sep 02 '18 at 10:14
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Something very silly

He asked "Do you know?". So the simple answer is "Yes" or "No". As 6 is not prime, "no"

JMP
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Quark-epoch
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  • Rot13(Fb gur sbphf vf abg gur "Cevzr" cneg naq vs lrf, gura jung vf gur sbphf?) – Quark-epoch Sep 02 '18 at 15:56
  • No, that is not the answer. How a phrase sounds like is of no concern (i.e. for the intended answer); it is more literal than that. To say the least, Grandpa is not asking a question. It was me who was asking the question because I couldn't figure out the meaning behind Granpa's silly statements. But I know, now :P – Mr Pie Sep 02 '18 at 23:48