Wednesday, March 11, 2026 - Eureka!

0:00Welcome to Jean and Mike, Do the New York Times Crossword. Hi, I'm Jean. And I'm Mike. And today we are doing the Crossword for Wednesday, March 11th, 2026. So, were you lucky when you did this Crossword? Why would I be lucky? Well, the theme involved luck. And so I thought perhaps you would be lucky because you were doing a Crossword that involved a theme involved luck. Oh, I see. I don't know if that was really luck or a happy chance as the clue said, the reveal it was. But in any case, I don't think I was lucky, but I did get it done. I don't know if luck had anything to do with it. I feel that I was lucky because I was able to have an opportunity to solve this Crossword by John Gazetta. Oh, well. I was lucky in that sense. I see. Okay. Well, I guess in that sense, I'm lucky too. Okay.

1:06Because it was a good puzzle. It was an interesting puzzle. Yes. I love the theme. Yeah. The theme was very interesting. We have three themed clues. And or was it four? It was four. Yeah. Described something that happened in history where somebody was trying to make something and it turned out they discovered something different. That was actually just as just as pertinent and probably pretty lucrative for them. So I'm going to read the clues because they are they are quite interesting. The first one was 17 across. In 1968, Spencer Silver at 3M Corporation was attempting to develop a super strong adhesive. And the answer to that was posted notes. 3M posted notes. And then 24 across was in 1928, Alexandra Fleming at St. Mary's Hospital in

2:07London found mold in his cultures of staphococcus bacteria. And that mold led to penicillin. Yeah. 36 across was in 1945, Percy Spencer at the Rayathon manufacturing company noticed the chocolate bar in his pocket had melted close to the magnetron. And of course that led to the development of the microwave oven. And then finally one I had never I had never heard this story. But in 1943, James Wright at General Electric was attempting to develop synthetic rubber for the war effort. And he came up with a silly putty. So and the revealer clue was 56 across. Happy chance as illustrated by the four invention stories at the theme clues. And that was a serendipity. Great word.

3:08And a fun puzzle. Yes. I was just noticing that when I looked at I don't know about it on the New York Times Cross, we're right now. I'm looking at the Oxford Info site. But there was a typo in 36 across in 1945, Percy Spencer at the Rayathon manufacturing co-impony. There's an eye in in company. No, not in the New York Times. Okay. Well, that is a relief. I'm surprised. I don't know how it could have snuck in to export info. But that's definitely an eye there. Yeah. I love this theme. I love the fact that it was sort of celebrating science and creativity and inventiveness. You know, you don't hear enough about that. You don't hear enough in the news today about people doing positive things to make the world better. Right. And here are people who did. And it was just by chance that they, they, I mean, I love the fact that they were trying to make a super strong adhesive. And they came up with a weak one. And they said, Oh, we've got lemons. Let's make lemonade. Hey, it's a

4:10poster. Yep. That's right. Oh, it's 3M, you know, right. But yes, it reminded me of our trip to Racine, Wisconsin, where we, where we actually visited the, the laboratories of Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, yeah, right. Wex company. Yes. Which we're designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. And that's rightly went. But, but it was just fascinating to see these old laboratories where, you know, they developed Johnson, Wax and all the other products that came out between what, about the 1940s, the 1960s. And so, yeah, it's amazing. Right. There were other great clues in the grid. I liked five down. That was tennis score after Duce and Din. Yes. I didn't know that. I didn't know that. And I thought, I wonder if that's a debut. It has appeared a total of 182 times.

5:11And every single time it was clued as something to do with tennis. No kidding. And it's, it's hated. It was between about, I would say 1966 and 1968. Every, it was like the Oreo cookie of, of the day, because it just showed up a whole lot of times. Yeah. And it's, and it's, it's sort of showed up, but, but not a lot lately. So, and they perhaps it's past its heyday or maybe it's just getting ready for a second, second win there. Could be. Wow. That's, that's fascinating. Mm-hmm. I like 20 across one in a hundred senator. Yes. Did you get that right away? No. No. We had to think about that. And then finally, I think I believe it is senator. Yes. Yeah. Because, you know, my first thought was, okay, it's going to be a percent or something. Uh-huh. Yes. Or, or rare, you know, but yeah. And let's see. We had a 29 down that was having

6:14streaks. Stripey. Yeah. Which one I look at the word? It's spelled S-T-R-I-P-Y. I so much want to put an E in there. Oh, me too. Me too. I want to know what happened to that E. Because it looks like strippy to me. Strippy. Uh-huh. No, but no, to be strippy, I feel like it should have had two peas in it. Right? It just feels, it doesn't feel like it's, oh, it's not, it's, it's neither stripy nor strippy. It's sort of the Schrodinger's cat of, but anyway, it's Schrodinger's cat like, I guess. I guess, yes. I do love the fact. My favorite clue of all, though, was 36 across. I know you already read it. I'm going to read it again. It's that good. Uh-uh, but, uh, per-uh, per-uh, are all paraphrase. Anyways, percy, Spencer, noticing a chocolate bar had melted close to a magnetron. And thus, the microwave oven was born. That's right. And percy also developed an alien growing out of his chest, but that's another problem. Yeah,

7:16you know, it's amazing that he didn't suffer some adverse reactions. Maybe he did, but he lived long enough to pan the thing. I mean, if you think about the fact that I'm sure way, way more people cook via microwaves than like an oven. Don't you think? I, I think so. They use the microwave more. Right. I don't know that they, you know, that they consider what they, they do cooking. What? They, they, you know, they heat up water. They make popcorn. Yeah, but having to do so many things that you couldn't do in an oven. Right. Well, our chef daughter has told this that it's chef Mike in the kitchen, right? Oh, yeah. I remember that nickname. Uh, 39 across language in which computer is made up of the characters for electric and brain, Chinese. I love the fact that they did that. Yes. Electric brain makes, makes sense. Yeah. And I really like 38 down. I mean, I've liked all, you can tell, I've liked all of these clues,

8:21but McCallis, one word replied to a German commander's demand of surrender. Nothing. I know what I'm creating response. We were thinking, you know, well, you know, I always said, some sort of, did he say something in German to him, but it's like, no, we just had nuts. I wasn't sure. I was thinking maybe he was going to end it with his ad, you know, just to sort of, but, but no, it was NUTS. Yeah, I thought that was very funny. We had 35 down clue examiner, and I thought it was a reference to us, but it was, in fact, detective. Oh, yes. No, we had most trouble in the upper left corner, because the first one across, I'm like, oh, I got this clause separator. It's a kind of right. And then it was like, no, it doesn't seem to be fitting in because I didn't know a den. You know, I was thinking with five down, what did I put for that tennis score after juice? I could try. Yeah. That sounded right.

9:27And, and we, and made four letter word for made. We were quite sure of that. No, no, four letter word for join, four down. Join. Yeah. It's made. Yeah. And then three down marked by religious zeal. That was messianic. Yes. You know, and I was like, well, that's, you know, certain religions that would be zeal, but I was looking for some sort of generic term, whatever your religion, if it's, if you're doing it with the zeal, what, what, what would be a comp, you know, a word for that. But anyway, yes, for Christians, messianic is religious zeal. And, you know, but there were just a lot of them. We couldn't figure out. And then one down, upper limit, I said, well, it's gonna be tough. Yes. I thought the same. Yeah. But it turned out, one across was comma, even though I wasn't quite sure that was right. And then the rest kind of, of course, the A was the A and a den. Right. Inmate and messianic. And then two down, well,

10:29that's a surprise was, oh, oh. And was that a surprise? Yeah. No, it really wasn't. It wasn't, because I, because I had the old area that well, maybe so. I didn't think of it originally. Yeah. I just, I guess I'd say, oh, oh, if I was surprised, surprise me sometime. And let's just see what I say. I might say that. I might say something entirely different. Like, go away. But one down, which I thought was surely top, right turned out to be cap. Yes. Which makes sense. Well, you see, I had top, because I had 14 across as on top for winning for the moment. If you're winning for the moment, you're on top. That's right. Actually, I put on top as well. Wow. And again, listeners, as we say, often on this show, Gina and I solve independently and only get to talk about it after we have done it. So coincidence, pure coincidence. Let's see. Oh, I like 30 across. What a great clue. Answer to the riddle ending. How many are going to St. Ives? Were you

11:34familiar with that riddle? Yes. Really? Where did you learn that riddle? Oh, there was then many had nursery rhyme book I had and that were read to me. Oh, okay. As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives. Each wife had seven sacks. Yeah. Each sack had seven cats. Each cat had seven kits. Kits, cats, sacks and wives. How many were there going to St. Ives? And the answer I did the calculation is 2,802. No, it's not. Yes, it is. No, they were going the opposite direction. What? There's only one person going to St. Ives, the person who's speaking the poem. As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man. So he was going away from St. Ives. There's no evidence of that. They could have been walking in the same direction and the eye person was going faster. So he caught up with them. There's no hint of direction there. I'm sorry. No, it's it when we think I met a man just like, you know, he came face to face. Maybe they

12:35were at they were, you know, one was heading west. One was heading east. They met and then they were all going to head north. That's reading a little too much. Well, you're you're deciding that you're also predicting directions. Listeners, help us out here. What do you think? 2,802 or one? One is certainly easier. I think one was the answer for people who didn't want to do the calculations. One was the answer. That was correct. No, it's 2,802. But due to an editorial mistake, they they allowed one in. That's my theory. Okay. I see your point though. I mean, the New York Times is saying one. All right, a total of 2,802 people were moving in the poem. We'll put it that way. And this is correct. Perhaps. We had that with you. I wasn't you know, that's a classic nursery rhyme. We also had a seven down with whom the dish ran away and hey, little, little. Yes. Yes. Yeah. That one I knew. Very good. We had 58 down. Large cask was a

13:45ton spelled T-U-N. Yes, I did not know that. And I was thinking that was going to be a debut. But no, it has appeared 151 times. And it's heyday was between the 60s and about 1963 and 1978 or so. Yep. It's all time high. It appeared six times in 1963. That's like once every two months. And just about every time it was clued as wine cask, sometimes cask, sometimes wine cask. I can't imagine it would be clued any other way because I have no other, no other definitions for ton to you. And once again, there was apparently an era. I guess early on clued ended with a period. Yeah, because I'm looking at this. And for instance, October 24th, 1963, it was large cask period. And it remained as such ending in a period until the last time in a, oh, it's sometimes

14:53appeared in a, with a period and sometimes in. For instance, May 31st, 1967, wine cask period. This was by William Luttony. Luttony, in case anyone needs to know. And then container didn't have a period. Large container, cask and cask. I'm going up to more recent times. It looks like they finally, the last time it appeared with a period was in 1969. And I guess, you know, the astronauts landed on the moon and they said, no more periods at the end of clues. This is the modern era. And so from then on, it didn't have a period. That's interesting. Yeah. I didn't even think about that. Must have been, I wonder if this was all before Will Shortz. But I bet he'd be able to explain it. Will, if you happen to be listening, drop us a line, crossword podcast at iCloud.com and explain the mystery of the disappearing period. Yes. We would like to know what happened to that period. How did they dissipate? Must have been a style change. I mean, it's the same. Let's see.

15:53For our, it was editor until about 1968, then Wang took over. I think it was, it was Wang's doing. Wang let three crossword slip in with periods. And then he said, no more periods. That's, that seems to be the case. Very few clues are a complete set. It's most of them were just phrases. Yeah, I mean, all of these are, no, they don't. Perhaps they decided that, you know, maybe the New York Times is running into financial difficulties and they decided they wanted to save on ink. Hey, we got to save everywhere we can. No periods if you don't need them. Not sure if that's what an editor sounds like, but all right. Well, on that fascinating historical note, I think we're going to wrap it up for today. Thanks, everyone for listening. Thanks for helping make this become one of the most popular podcasts about the New York Times crossword to come out of Northeast Wisconsin. Yes. And we will be back again with our cutting edge analysis of Thursday's crossword tomorrow. Bye-bye.