4
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(Awarding prizes to runners-up)

And the winner is...

(drumroll)

...

where is our winner?

rebus
(Click to enlarge.)


Note: The flavor text is for flavor only. This is a rebus puzzle. So,

What does this rebus say?

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1

1 Answer 1

3
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My initial idea was ...

The greek letter tau

... because ...

as the rebus says: $\tau$ is better than $2\pi$
https://tauday.com/tau-manifesto

... but ..

This is at best the first step to the solution. I didn't see you can enlarge the picture and I cannot figure what to make out of it.

Update

Continuing in a community-wiki fashion here are other puzzler's contributions

Bass notes that the enlarged picture represents a nanocentury. 10^-9 is the nano scale, and a cherry partially covered by a cent could be read (cent)erry, or century. Or as oAlt mentions, "cent-cherry" sounds like "century".
Bass relates it to the remarkable fact that that one nanocentury equals roughly pi seconds.

Amoz wraps it up:
Duff's Rule is "pi seconds is a nanocentury" - we have here "pi seconds (2 second place pis), "is a" (equal signs) and "nanocentury".

In summary, the answer should be

"Pi seconds is a nanocentury"
And it is not about tau after all...

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8
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ What about the enlarged picture clue? $\endgroup$ Dec 28, 2022 at 20:53
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Huh? Enlarged picture? I didn't see you can click. $\endgroup$
    – Florian F
    Dec 28, 2022 at 20:55
  • $\begingroup$ The hidden clue (which is a clue type we don't do here very much, the regulars don't ever seem to appreciate a good gotcha even when it's clever) is for rot13(anabpraghel), which is a unit of time surprisingly close to pi seconds. Doesn't really fit in with there being two podium spots with number two, though, so with the apparent equals signs in the picture, I'll have to go with @florian-f's solution too. $\endgroup$
    – Bass
    Dec 28, 2022 at 23:21
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    $\begingroup$ I think @Bass essentially solved it; the precise wording of rot13(Qhss'f Ehyr vf "cv frpbaqf vf n anabpraghel"- jr unir urer "cv frpbaqf (2 frpbaq cynpr cvf), "vf n" (rdhny fvtaf) naq "anabpraghel" (V trg anabprag ohg qba'g rknpgyl frr ubj gur pureel gheaf vg vagb anabpraghel).) $\endgroup$
    – Amoz
    Dec 29, 2022 at 2:40
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    $\begingroup$ And that explains the title too. nicely done. $\endgroup$
    – Jasen
    Dec 30, 2022 at 7:17

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