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My friend Tim was an electrical enthusiast and he kept experimenting on new things. A few days back he called me for help. He wanted me to meet him as fast as I could. He sounded quite terrified. As I went down to his house. I noticed the door was smashed in half. As I rushed in I saw nothing except for his furniture and a tiny circuit with some cells. I know he was a genius, what message could have he left for me?

The cells were marked with colors and their emfs:

They read as:

66V - BLUE - [Ideal Cell]

70V - BLACK - [Ideal Cell]

65V - VIOLET - [Ideal Cell]

83V- RED - [Ideal Cell]

72V - INDIGO - [Ideal Cell]

73V - GREEN - [Ideal Cell]

69V - YELLOW - [Ideal Cell]

77V - ORANGE - [Ideal Cell]

Hint:

The value of current in the circuit corresponds to certain ASCII characters and the color in the resistors will help you arrange the characters to get the message.

Here's the circuit:Circuit

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    $\begingroup$ should this require knowledge tag as well? $\endgroup$
    – ben-Nabiy Derush
    Commented May 23, 2017 at 14:47
  • $\begingroup$ @ben-NabiyDerush I am poor at tagging. Can you please add some tags that may seem relevant to you, I will edit the ones I feel irrelevant. $\endgroup$
    – prog_SAHIL
    Commented May 23, 2017 at 14:52
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    $\begingroup$ Are you sure about the colours, especially if the colours violet and indigo are used? $\endgroup$
    – jarnbjo
    Commented May 23, 2017 at 16:52
  • $\begingroup$ The only answer I find with the current knowledge is rot13(SVFU ORNZ), which, as funny as it might be, doesn't seem to be the answer $\endgroup$
    – Auribouros
    Commented Jul 11, 2022 at 11:20
  • $\begingroup$ @Auribouros how did you find that answer? I mean, the letters are correct but what about the order? $\endgroup$
    – melfnt
    Commented Jul 11, 2022 at 12:52

2 Answers 2

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I am not sure if I am on the right track, but:

If you apply Ohm's law to the circuit with those cells, you arrive at I = the same as the voltage. If you apply those numbers to ASCII, you arrive at B,F,A,S,H,I,E,M. Possible anagram?

Regarding the colors:

If done in accord with the rainbow, they spell SMEIBHAF assuming black is the last color. Something to do with "my behalf"?

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  • $\begingroup$ I think you meant I (current) is the same, not R. R is defined as 1 ohm in the question $\endgroup$
    – indubitablee
    Commented May 23, 2017 at 15:17
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    $\begingroup$ You haven't used the colors yet. They look important $\endgroup$
    – Techidiot
    Commented May 23, 2017 at 15:19
  • $\begingroup$ ben you are quite on the right track and that is current not R. Also as @Techidiot pointed you still have the colors to use. $\endgroup$
    – prog_SAHIL
    Commented May 23, 2017 at 15:23
  • $\begingroup$ They look like color codes for Resistors.. $\endgroup$
    – Sid
    Commented May 23, 2017 at 16:18
  • $\begingroup$ I am not sure if the order is according to resistor color pattern, or if it is a modifier. If anyone else has ideas, throw them out there :) $\endgroup$
    – ben-Nabiy Derush
    Commented May 23, 2017 at 19:44
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My best attempt so far...

Working from @ben-Nabiy Derush's answer, we know that the 8 letters are:

B, F, A, S, H, I, E and M

Using the colours for the "order"

If we assume the colours are ordered R-O-Y-G-B-I-V-L, then we can number each 1 - 8, which would give us the following sequence: 5-8-7-1-6-4-3-2

Taking the 5th, 8th, 7th... etc letters gives us:
H M E B I S A F

So "home be safe" perhaps?

A few other things I noted:

It's possible to make "IM SAFE" with the available letters, but that leaves 'H' and 'B' as the remaining letter. Somehow I don't think the solution is "HB IM SAFE" (Happy Birthday, I'm safe)

If you use resistor colours (red = 2, orange = 3, yellow = 4, green = 5, blue = 6, violet = 7) and increment each letter we found by that number (so the first 'B' is blue (6), which becomes 'H') and if you leave black and indigo as they are (they're not resistor colours), it spells out:
H F H U H N H P
I don't think it's the answer, but I thought it was a neat conincidence

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