5
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Someone broke my heart,
Part of me resides in the intersection of Rand al'Thor and the 26
Sometimes I just need every way of knowing who the fourth to win a race was.
Then again sometimes I just run marathons and win silvers and bronzes.
But the sums of my life is the sums of all the races I ran and all the movies I saw.
And that gives me the energy to go ahead and fulfil my dreams.

Who am I?
I've been asking the same to myself for over a hundred years lmao

Hint

White hair

Hint 2

Did you notice the <head> <?> </?> </head> ?

Hint 3

Something new popped up in the tags section? 😮

Hint 4:

Line 6 : "sums" of my life?

Hint 5 (the last one):

What if it isn't a word?

(not a hint i guess but)

another new tag huh?


Also clarifying the point raised, Rand al'Thor is mentioned just to make the puzzle fun, I hope he doesn't mind it. It is by no means necessary to know anything about him in order to solve the puzzle too (although this may be a sort of hint, I felt like clearing this up to the senior members of the community who were objecting it.)

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  • $\begingroup$ I posted after a huge sabbatical ( about a year ), so hope it isn't received negatively $\endgroup$ Commented Dec 8, 2021 at 18:08
  • 1
  • $\begingroup$ @bobble I'd like to say that Users have been referenced in many puzzles before. Nevertheless, in this one, the puzzle doesn't need any knowledge about Rand al'Thor. If it violates the guidelines, let me know and I'll close it :) $\endgroup$ Commented Dec 9, 2021 at 10:54
  • $\begingroup$ Probably this is fine, the links are just some relevant things to keep in mind for next time! $\endgroup$
    – bobble
    Commented Dec 9, 2021 at 14:37
  • 3
    $\begingroup$ I note that a large number of edits to this post appear to have been done merely to add or remove trailing blanks... Just so you know, this is generally discouraged on Puzzling as a way to 'bump' one's puzzle back up the front page. Alternatively, consider (i) providing more direct clues to aid the solve, (ii) putting a bounty on the question to draw attention to it, or (iii) just sitting it out and waiting to see if someone comes up with the answer - some puzzles here can stay unsolved for days, weeks, months or even years: there's no shame in it remaining unsolved for a while! :) $\endgroup$
    – Stiv
    Commented Dec 16, 2021 at 16:46

3 Answers 3

4
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It took several months of googling ;) but I believe you are

Albert Einstein

Someone broke my heart,

OP mentioned in a comment that this means that the answer has been broken down into parts.

Part of me resides in the intersection of Rand al'Thor and the 26

Rand al'Thor himself recognized that the intersection of his name and the name of the alphabet is AL

Sometimes I just need every way of knowing who the fourth to win a race was.

The fourth element on the Periodic Table is Beryllium whose symbol is Be.

Then again sometimes I just run marathons and win silvers and bronzes.

This could clue RT for Rotten Tomatoes, a website that reviews movies that, as the name implies, do not win gold medals. This has nothing to do with marathons (other than maybe a movie watching marathon) but OP said in the comments that a lot of the words are "gibberish" to "maintain the flow". The next line seems to confirm that this is in fact about movies.

But the sums of my life is the sums of all the races I ran and all the movies I saw.

This confirms that the previous clue was about movies and confirms that the answer is AL + BE + RT = ALBERT

And that gives me the energy to go ahead and fulfil my dreams.

Albert Einstein discovered the famous equation $E = mc^{2}$ which relates energy to mass and the speed of light.

Who am I? I've been asking the same to myself for over a hundred years lmao

Albert Einstein was born in 1879 and has had over a century to question his identity. If this answer is correct then I hope it helps mend his heart and reaffirm his identity.

The hints:

Albert Einstein had White hair and did .

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  • $\begingroup$ Nice! Laughing could refer to a famous photo. $\endgroup$
    – Amoz
    Commented Apr 17, 2022 at 10:51
  • $\begingroup$ oh man you're close but .... rot13(lbh vagrecergrq gur vagrefrpgvba cneg jebatyl....).... man i should have added that as a hint :').. i mean you are super close but still not close $\endgroup$ Commented Apr 22, 2022 at 12:00
  • $\begingroup$ man i like the way you thought about this... it is just too elegant... if i dont get the right answer within a week from now i might just mark this as right lol $\endgroup$ Commented Apr 22, 2022 at 12:02
  • $\begingroup$ I guess enough waiting... I'll mark this as right before i forget what the answer was. Its close enough! $\endgroup$ Commented Jul 24, 2022 at 12:49
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I'm not sure about all of it, but maybe it's...

Scarlett O'Hara?

because: Someone broke my heart

(obvious from the plot/character)

Part of me resides in the intersection of Rand al'Thor and the 26

I take this to mean part resides in the letters (26 in alphabet / intersection) in his name, and o'Hara definitely can be extracted from that.

Not sure of the rest, which makes me think I'm wrong, or just don't have enough knowledge. If others have ideas that match, feel free to move it forward.

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  • $\begingroup$ I like the way you gave thought about this, unfortunately this isn't the answer... Moreover how can you explain how it relates to the hints? $\endgroup$ Commented Dec 11, 2021 at 4:57
  • $\begingroup$ Great attempt though, rot13(znal cnegf bs guvf evqqyr ner whfg tvoorevfu, V zrna gb fnl gung, whfg sbphf ba gur znva yvarf bs gur evqqyr, vg unf zbfg bs gur pyhrf ;)) $\endgroup$ Commented Dec 11, 2021 at 4:59
  • $\begingroup$ @Quark-epoch By 'gibberish' do you mean some of the lines have nothing to do with the answer and don't need to be explained? If so I think we would need to know which these are, or we are just guessing. For example I have an idea, but it doesn't reconcile with the 'sums' line so I can't post it. $\endgroup$
    – Amoz
    Commented Dec 17, 2021 at 5:03
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    $\begingroup$ @Amoz if this is another Puzzling SE policy I am not aware about then the line "Someone broke my heart," falls in this category because it just shows the the answer has been broken down into parts. Each of the remaining lines is related to the answer, although there are a few words here and there that are important to maintain the flow of the riddle but has nothing to do with the answer $\endgroup$ Commented Dec 17, 2021 at 9:05
  • $\begingroup$ @Quark-epoch Not any policy but that is very helpful information as people seem to be stumped. I had been worried maybe you were implying that entire lines were unrelated, which would make this extremely difficult. $\endgroup$
    – Amoz
    Commented Dec 17, 2021 at 16:45
1
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Partial answer

Someone broke my heart,

According to a comment from the OP, this just means that the answer is broken up into several parts with each line cluing a different part.

Part of me resides in the intersection of Rand al'Thor and the 26

The 26 should be the ALPHABET, so maybe the intersection with RANDALTHOR is the morpheme AL?

Sometimes I just need every way of knowing who the fourth to win a race was.

Apparently, pewter is sometimes used for fourth prizes after gold, silver, and bronze.

Then again sometimes I just run marathons and win silvers and bronzes.

Maybe something to do with the periodic table? Silver is Ag, but bronze (like pewter) is an alloy.

But the sums of my life is the sums of all the races I ran and all the movies I saw.

Dunno about this line. The only physics-related (according to the tags) famous film title coming to my mind is the Life of Pi, but I could be barking completely up the wrong tree.

And that gives me the energy to go ahead and fulfil my dreams.

Energy in a physics sense? Maybe the answer could be something like LIGHT, especially given the last part of the riddle ...

Who am I? I've been asking the same to myself for over a hundred years lmao

If this refers to the history of physics, it could be something like the wave-particle duality of light.

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  • $\begingroup$ Wow! I like the way you think, I never thought it could be You were completely off track in the beginning but somewhere close towards the end... I'll be posting a final hint in 12-16 hours $\endgroup$ Commented Dec 18, 2021 at 21:09
  • $\begingroup$ Hmm. I'd been pretty sure about the same beginning as Rand's here but had a different guess for where it was going to end (though I wasn't able to make it actually work). Oh well, back to the drawing board. $\endgroup$
    – Gareth McCaughan
    Commented Dec 22, 2021 at 0:21

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