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Here's a puzzle that I created. The end result is a number. the puzzle

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  • $\begingroup$ hackflag.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=3732 $\endgroup$ Feb 24, 2015 at 16:38
  • $\begingroup$ Yes, I've posted the same puzzle before on that forum a few months ago, but finding this stackexchange site reminded me and led me to post it here as well. $\endgroup$
    – Peetz0r
    Feb 24, 2015 at 16:54

2 Answers 2

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The puzzle represents:

Pi 3.1415926535...

I ran the image through a magic eye finder and got this mess:

Messy Image

I cleaned that up to get this:

Cleaned Image

And inverted the colors to get this:

QR Code

Which is a QR code that translates to the following text:

143353-486602

Or, in raw bytes, this:

20 68 31 11 43 93 9c 96 e2 1c 10 00 ec 11 ec 11 ec 11 ec


All hail Len! I had been trying to figure out which coordinate system to use. I found Almere in OP's profile but had no idea the Dutch had their own coordinate system. God help the American education system...

Here's the final piece as posted by Len (if you +1 me, then +1 Len, too):

The final number is pi

From the clue on the OP's profile page, the numbers (143353-486602) are coordinates for the Dutch RD (Rijks-Driehoek) system. Using this site for conversion provides WGS84 coordinates of (52.367180,5.216201) which is in the city of Almere, Netherlands. With Google satellite, the coordinates are exactly at the number 3 as shown in this photo.
Final Solution
You can tell by the rest of the digits that, for some reason, pi is printed in giant digits on the asphalt. From the other forum that OP posted in, he was looking for the first 10 digits. In that case, it's 3.1415926536 or, if you go out to my favorite digit of pi, it's 3.14159265358979323846264338327950

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  • $\begingroup$ You're halfway, and mostly on the right track. $\endgroup$
    – Peetz0r
    Feb 24, 2015 at 18:44
  • $\begingroup$ That's only halfway? Argh. Can you at least confirm if my QR code is right? Cleaning up the original was a pain and there were some gray areas that I couldn't be sure if they were supposed to be black or white. $\endgroup$ Feb 24, 2015 at 19:04
  • $\begingroup$ Yes, the fact that you were able to actually scan the QR would be enough information. Also, your first conclusion is almost completely correct. My profile could actually contain an (unintenden) hint for the next step. $\endgroup$
    – Peetz0r
    Feb 25, 2015 at 0:57
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    $\begingroup$ The number could also be pi, which is what the rest of the string of numbers is. $\endgroup$
    – nimsson
    Feb 25, 2015 at 14:20
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    $\begingroup$ I had a look at the translated forum that you found, and the coordinates would be Dutch like Len suggests. The forum also said that the first one to get 10 digits would get an apple pie, so the answer is pi for 100% sure. @Peetz0r $\endgroup$
    – nimsson
    Feb 25, 2015 at 14:36
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If this is correct, feel free to add in to the first answer. Continuing with the excellent work by Engineer Toast, I think this completes the second part of the puzzle:

The final number is 3

From the clue on the OP's profile page, the numbers (143353-486602) are coordinates for the Dutch RD (Rijks-Driehoek) system.
Using this site for conversion provides WGS84 coordinates of (52.367180,5.216201) which is in the city of Almere, Netherlands.
With Google satellite, the coordinates are exactly at the number 3 as shown in this photo.

AlmerePhoto

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