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  • From my second point of view I copy that amount of first.
  • I am the dominant side of two but for many I'm the worst.
  • I'll be tricky to find but today might be your day,
  • after all my neighbour is 2/3 of me when you look a certain way...

What number am I? (It is a whole number)

Hint 1

The riddle is self referential

Hint 2 (riddle continuation)

  • Add me up and I am fair.

  • Build from bits, you're not quite there.

  • Unless you've met my friend, online.

  • Their position is apart of the first line.

Hint 3

What would "that amount" be referring to? Why is the phrasing significant? What's so special about this number anyway? What about line 4? Remember: this riddle could be solved without the knowledge of part 2 (continuation).

Bonus if you can say what number is the neighbour and what number is the friend!

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    $\begingroup$ If you are reaching for an answer or cannot fit your answer to the whole riddle then it isn't correct. It seems that it is common to misinterpret the first line of the riddle $\endgroup$
    – Adam
    Jan 13, 2019 at 10:35

8 Answers 8

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Alright I know I have it now! (or at least am very close)

6

"From my second point of view I copy that amount of first."

On a die, the six is two copied rows of three

"I am the dominant side of two but for many I'm the worst."

Wait...6 is opposite side of one on a die. I think I'm close, though.

"I'll be tricky to find but today might be your day,"

There's a 1/6 chance!

"after all my neighbour is 2/3 of me when you look a certain way..."

There is a 4 next to a six on a die.

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    $\begingroup$ Good effort but the last reasoning is a bit shaky $\endgroup$
    – Adam
    Jan 12, 2019 at 21:54
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    $\begingroup$ How does it look now? $\endgroup$
    – Brandon_J
    Jan 12, 2019 at 21:57
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    $\begingroup$ I up-voted because I admire your approach but there isn't a trick at the end, it is more concrete. $\endgroup$
    – Adam
    Jan 12, 2019 at 22:00
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    $\begingroup$ oh, ok. Let me try again. $\endgroup$
    – Brandon_J
    Jan 12, 2019 at 22:01
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    $\begingroup$ I just upvoted. Congratulations on reaching past 5k rep! :D $\endgroup$
    – Mr Pie
    Jul 8, 2019 at 16:49
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Answer:

13

Reasoning:

Clue #3:

Today is January 13

Clue #4:

Let the neighbor be 12. Looking at both numbers modulo 10, the neighbor is 2 = 2/3 * 3.

Clue #2:

13 dominates 2. Also, in.Western culture at least, 13 symbolizes bad luck.

Clue #1:

Assume the different points of view are the individual digit. The second POV would thus be the second digit, ie. 3. The written representation of 13 is 'thirteen', exactly 3 letters of which can be extracted from the string 'first' (one specimen of 't', 'i', and 'r').

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  • $\begingroup$ Clue 1 is reaching a bit but good attempt... im adding a hint to the question now $\endgroup$
    – Adam
    Jan 12, 2019 at 22:32
  • $\begingroup$ So close, yet so far away haha $\endgroup$
    – Brandon_J
    Jan 13, 2019 at 3:18
  • $\begingroup$ A new hint has been added $\endgroup$
    – Adam
    Jan 13, 2019 at 10:38
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My guess is

666 the number of the beast.

"From my second point of view I copy that amount of first."
The second point of view copies the first 666 and rotates it to 999.

"I am the dominant side of two but for many I'm the worst."
The Devil may possibly be the more dominant of the God/Devil archetypes and arguably worse.

"I'll be tricky to find but today might be your day."
Unsure about this line.

"after all my neighbour is 2/3 of me when you look a certain way..."
666 / 999 = 2 / 3 when you look upside down to swap the values.

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  • $\begingroup$ Hints have been added, make sure your answer works with the whole riddle $\endgroup$
    – Adam
    Jan 13, 2019 at 10:39
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I think the answer is

1

From my second point of view I copy that amount of first.

The other point of view is Roman numerals, in which 1 is I (that is "I" copies 1).

I am the dominant side of two but for many I'm the worst.

1 often represents 1st place which dominates over 2nd place but is also the lowest score in many circumstances (think rolling a 1). Also "first is the worst..", etc.

I'll be tricky to find but today might be your day,

It's still January which is month number 1.

after all my neighbour is 2/3 of me when you look a certain way

When written in English 1 is ONE. 2/3 of that is ON which, when viewed upside-down is NO, representing 0, the neighbour of 1.

Self-reference

Again "I" is the Roman numeral for 1 and also represents the self.

Title

What mysterious whole number am I? (again the answer is in the title).

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  • $\begingroup$ Good try but you should reconsider "after all my neighbour" line because it isn't abstract. Pay close attention to the wording and grammar of the riddle also $\endgroup$
    – Adam
    Jan 13, 2019 at 10:54
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I'll have a go at it. I guess:

7, 3 is the neighbour and 111 is the friend.

"From my second point of view I copy that amount of first."

I take "first" to signify 1, and in binary seven is 111 so the digit representation is the first copied.

"I am the dominant side of two but for many I'm the worst."

I guess dominant refers to larger and it's larger than two other similar numbers in binary; 1, and 11. It is smaller (=dominated by) infinitely numbers (=many).

"I'll be tricky to find but today might be your day,"

It might be the seventh day of the week for the reader depending on timezone.

"after all my neighbour is 2/3 of me when you look a certain way..."

It's a power of two minus one, so it's preceding term (neighbour) is 3, which is 11 in binary and hence two thirds the length.

My guess for the continuation, with weaker reasoning I believe:

"Add me up and I am fair."

Don't know about this one. This makes me doubt all the reasoning considering that it appears that I've got nothing to add apart from the binary representation.

"Build from bits, you're not quite there.

Unless you've met my friend, online."

7 is not a binary representation, while 111 is, it's binary counterpart ("friend").

Their position is apart of the first line.

"First" and "second" view in the first line refers to decimal and binary.

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    $\begingroup$ Definitely the best crack at an answer so far! This is a good angle to take the riddle from but you are right, the reasoning is weaker in some areas and the answer has no weakness $\endgroup$
    – Adam
    Jan 13, 2019 at 15:53
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Answer

28

Clue 1:

28 is a perfect number

Clue 2- no idea

Clue 3:

Perhaps referring to the long and difficult search engaged in to find Mersenne primes?

Clue 4:

The perfect number immediately before 28 is 6. The power of 2 that goes with 6's Mersenne prime is 2- for 28, it's 3.

The identity of the friend:

Since you said the puzzle was self-referential, I'm going to say that the friend is either 1 or 2 (as both of these kind of appear in the first line of the riddle). I'm then going to go out on a limb and say it's 1, since there was that whole thing about the sum of bits being fair and in binary 28-1=27 is a palindrome and cyclops number.

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    $\begingroup$ Have another go at it. Line 2 is a big part of the riddle so I would recommend deciphering it first. Everything will fall into place when you have the answer $\endgroup$
    – Adam
    Jan 14, 2019 at 19:51
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My try (probably too far-fetched):

5 (namely, 5th degree in musical (major or minor) scale or the interval of 5th) [Neighbour = 1, friend = 4]

From my second point of view I copy that amount of first.

In minor, both major and minor triads are used on the 5th degree, which share 2 notes out of 3 ("that amount" means 2/3, which is the self-reference)

I am the dominant side of two but for many I'm the worst.

5th degree in scale is called, well, the dominant. But "5th" (an ordinal number) usually seems worse than "1st" (e.g. 5th place)

I'll be tricky to find but today might be your day,

Almost no idea (maybe that's about minor triad on dominant, which is rarely used)

after all my neighbour is 2/3 of me when you look a certain way...

1st degree (a "neighbour" in the sense that the keys built using 1st and 5th degrees respectively as root are only 1 accidental apart) in just intonation has 2/3 of the 5th's frequency (perfect 5th has a frequency ratio of 3/2)

Add me up and I am fair.

The interval between 5th degree and another 5th degree is perfect octave (or multiple octaves), which is "fair" (i.e. sounds clean)

Build from bits, you're not quite there.

Again, in just intonation, 12 perfect 5ths are not quite equal to 7 perfect 8ves.

Unless you've met my friend, online.

Perfect 5th and 4th always give a perfect 8ve (even in just intonation)

Their position is apart of the first line.

Probably a reference to staff lines (of the 4th and 1st degrees of the same scale, one is always written on the some line, and another between lines)

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    $\begingroup$ Good connection but this is a maths problem and yea, too far fetched but I like your idea someone should make another riddle like this $\endgroup$
    – Adam
    Jan 14, 2019 at 13:32
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The numbers relevant to this riddle are

1,3,5,12,13

With the expected answer being

13

The neighbour is

11

The friend is

5

The riddle is all about

The properties of the number and using digits. General theme of 3.

Explanation

The riddle is deceitful in that you cannot use any information from Line 1: "From my second point of view I copy that amount of first" : until you know what the number is or have narrowed it down to a point where you can use process of elimination. The ideal place to start is Line 2: "I am the dominant side of two but for many I'm the worst" : which can be misinterpreted for many ideas (like literally being next to 2) but it is referring to Pythagorean triples where 13 is the hypotenuse of 5 and 12. The second part of Line 2 can mean many things such as 13 being almost the smallest positive integer hypotenuse or that it is leading into Line 3 for example but the key point is that 13 is seen as an unlucky number for many people. Line 3 : "I'll be tricky to find but today might be your day" : refers to the surprising difficulty of this riddle but also the struggle with prime numbers and the strangeness of the number 13. This riddle was posted on 12th Jan from where I am but it was 13th Jan elsewhere which was the hint in the second half of Line 3 but it was also implying that today could be your unlucky day. Now that we know that the number could be 13 we can then interpret Line 1. The 'point of view' was referring to number bases and the 'second' digit of thirteen is 3 so converting 13 from base 10 to base 3 we see that it becomes 111 which just so happens to be 3 copies of the 'first' digit 1. Line 4 : "after all my neighbour is 2/3 of me when you look a certain way" : purposefully is a continuation of Line 3 that refers to primes. The prime number before 13 is 11 and counting the number of 1's we see that in comparison to 111 it is 2/3.

Explanation of hint 2 (continuation)

This hint was used to clarify what the riddle was about since you may not be in the right mindset to get the answer. Line 1 : "Add me up and I am fair" : was used to narrow everything down so that you don't get too carried away on the wrong track. It was referring to the summation of the digits in 13 being the even number 4 but also the summation of the sides of the 5,12,13 triangle. Line 2 : "Build from bits, you're not quite there" : simply was to make you think about number bases. Binary is associated with bits and is in base 2 but the riddle required you to use base 3. Line 3 : "Unless you've met my friend, online" : is relating back to Line 2 and makes an actual case for 'building from bits' as length 13 in the triangle is the result of the two smaller lines being added together (resultant). 'Online' has a double meaning but in both cases it is a play on words. It refers to the smaller lines in the triangle defining 13 but it also refers to the prime number sequence that 5 from the triangle just so happens to sit on. Line 4 : "Their position is apart of the first line" : takes the number 5 and asks you what its position in the prime number sequence is. It is third and the number 3 is used at the start of the riddle.

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    $\begingroup$ Posted the solution since the post has died down. Everyone made a great attempt and may find this underwhelming. This is my first riddle $\endgroup$
    – Adam
    Jan 18, 2019 at 22:04
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    $\begingroup$ Just remember this in the future: I've a lot of reputation and will likely have much more, as I love Puzzling.SE and will regularly post and answer questions. Along with that, I like to be generous... so with that being said, if you ever want people to look at your post to answer, and you don't have much reputation, tell me about it and I will try to put a bounty on it (50-200). I also would have upvoted incidentally, but I've reached my daily voting limit (DVL); but point is, try not to let answering your own riddles become a habit and congratulations to your very first riddle here on PSE! :D $\endgroup$
    – Mr Pie
    Jan 19, 2019 at 12:27
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    $\begingroup$ Thanks for your generous offer. Im hoping that I won't need to post solutions to my puzzles but I realised that this one may have been too difficult and it was slightly circumstantial. $\endgroup$
    – Adam
    Jan 19, 2019 at 15:41

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