12
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I was showing off my knowledge of obscure geography trivia to my father. He admitted he'd never remember all those details, but insisted that there was a certain other topic where nobody could ever match the depth of his knowledge. This confused me, as I've never known my father to be much of a bookworm. When I asked what the topic was, he put it in the form of a puzzle.

88° 02′ 13″ S
76° 02′ 04″ S
36° 02′ 06″ S
88° 02′ 13″ S
76° 02′ 04″ S
26° 02′ 06″ N
80° 02′ 13″ S
92° 02′ 08″ S
64° 01′ 29″ S
32° 02′ 04″ S
02° 02′ 08″ N

I'm confused now. Only the latitude has been given, not the longitude. There is no way to pin down any exact locations. However he insists that the list contains enough information to figure out the answer. But how?


This puzzle is part of Recycling old answers.

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4
  • 9
    $\begingroup$ These aren't Latitudes. 92° 02′ 08″ S is impossible. $\endgroup$ Mar 29, 2019 at 15:27
  • 3
    $\begingroup$ The first two appear twice each. $\endgroup$ Mar 29, 2019 at 18:17
  • $\begingroup$ Rot13(ll zz qq?) can’t connect them though $\endgroup$
    – arbitrahj
    Mar 30, 2019 at 2:24
  • $\begingroup$ rot13 (bylzcvpf?) $\endgroup$
    – arbitrahj
    Mar 30, 2019 at 3:04

1 Answer 1

11
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I think we are looking for:

OLD OLYMPICS

Because the latitues

Are actually dates of the form YY-MM-DD (S = 1900's ,N = 2000's)

Which lead you to

The Winter Olympics (the dates are the starting date of winter olympics.

For example 88° 02′ 13″ S:

Is February 13th, 1988. which was the 15th Winter Olympics

Taking the number corresponding to each one, we get:

15,12,4,15,12,25,13,16,9,3,19

And that spells

OLD OLYMPICS with a simple A=1, B=2 substitution

Also...

I think there is a typo in the 2nd to last line and it should be 32° 02′ 04″ S

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4
  • $\begingroup$ Should the sixth one be S instead of N, then? $\endgroup$
    – El-Guest
    Mar 30, 2019 at 3:28
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @El-Guest its correct, but not yet happened $\endgroup$
    – arbitrahj
    Mar 30, 2019 at 3:51
  • $\begingroup$ This is correct. I've fixed the error on the second-to-last line. $\endgroup$
    – Jafe
    Mar 30, 2019 at 8:09
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ WELLDONE. I just came online because I thought they could be dates. Good work! $\endgroup$
    – LeppyR64
    Mar 30, 2019 at 15:44

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