Dobunnis

As one of the cachers (along with Carolyn) at the first of the events on Knoydart I can highly recommend a visit to the area. Great company, good food (especially the fish) and lots of walking in the wilderness, Helen

DING Heft designed the current U.S. flag in 1958 while living with his grandparents. He was 17 years old at the time and did the flag design as a high school class project. He un-stitched the blue field from a family 48-star flag, sewed in a new field, and used iron-on white fabric to add 100 hand-cut stars, 50 on each side of the blue canton. Heft originally received a B- for the project. After discussing the grade with his high school teacher, Stanley Pratt, it was agreed that if the flag was accepted by the United States Congress, the grade would be reconsidered. Heft's flag design was chosen and adopted by presidential proclamation after Alaska and before Hawaii were admitted into the union in 1959. According to Heft, his teacher honored their agreement and changed his grade to an A for the project. When Alaska and Hawaii were being considered for statehood, more than 1,500 designs were spontaneously submitted to President Dwight D. Eisenhower by Americans. At least three, and probably more, of these designs were identical to Heft's adopted design of the 50-star flag. Archived in the Eisenhower Presidential Center in Abilene, Kansas, only a small fraction of the proposed designs have ever been published. On December 12, 2009, he died from a heart attack at the age of 68. Over to martin&lindabryn...

That at least suggests that it is known even if only in the darkest recesses of the mind That must be the longest we have had a question last and I am not trying to stitch you up either. I had a series of hints but never thought I would get to use them. So... does it help to know it was in the USA? Helen

No takers? Would it help to know the project was done in 1958? Helen

It's been long time since we posted a question but here goes... Robert G Heft at the age of 17 famously managed to get the grade on a school project upgraded from a B- to an A by winning a bet with his tutor. What was the project about and how did he win?

That confused me for a moment then I realised you meant the band in which case it is Alison Krauss Helen

That's a DING for Keehotee. I thought it may have lasted a bit longer than that but at least it led to multiple answers. Thriller is the biggest selling album of all time but Dark Side of the Moon spent 736 weeks in the Billboard Top 200 from 1973 to 1988! Second place is Bob Marley and the Wailers' Legend which charted for about half that time. Helen

Sorry, I tend to get pedantic when a physics question appears I am sure the principle was known before Galileo (although there were so many competing ideas I am not sure who by specifically) but I agree he is the first to have published the work and formulated the mathematics. OK, a music question... Which album has spent the longest continuous period in the American Billboard Top 200 Album Chart? Helen

Not really a good question as which theory are you asking about and it is disputed anyway. Ultimately Einstein based his theory on numerous works and did not reference any of them! Galileo stated the original theory of relative motion but that is the one everyone knows: the speed between two objects is just the sum of the velocities. Maxwell used Faraday's experimental results to develop his equations and unfortunately these do not satisfy the Galileon transformations. So the ether was born and questions were asked as to which theory was correct. Around the same time Lorentz developed his transforms which are what the special theory of relativity relies on. Michelson (and Morley) then showed the speed of light was constant and disproved the ether model so confirming the Lorentz transforms. Then Einstein came along and took all the credit. He did develop the general theory pretty much on his own although relied heavily on some mathematics on multi-dimensional topology developed around the same time. So take your pick: Galileo, Maxwell, Lorentz, Michelson, Einstein or a combination of the above, Helen

Next question... remember no search on the internet... Where in the world is Mather Point?

That would be the Torrey Canyon, Helen

If you want to see the film of the finale (with Marcus introducing and describing the puzzles along with a number of shots of face-pulling while solving them) then you can see it at www.bbc.co.uk/code. It has been chopped so much that you cannot see how things went (apart from Pete winning) but as I said previously that just saves me some blushes of embarrassment, Helen

DING! It was indeed the second part of "The End of Time", David Tennant's last episode as the Doctor, and yes Alonso Frame does pop up in the bar near the end when the Doctor is visiting his old companions before regenerating. Over to bobbinz

I will give you that one. He did indeed play Midshipman Alonso Frame. At the end of the other episode the Doctor does point Jack in Alonso's direction with his name to get them together but it is not in "Journey's End", the last episode of the 4th revived series. That just leaves the name of the second episode in which Alonso Frame appears (or at least what is special about it) for the ding, Helen

No, not the master and he has only appeared in those two episodes. The Doctor did try to pair him off with a recurring character though. As for the name of the episode, I guess I will accept what was special about that episode instead. Helen

Congratulations! Have you got her first cache find planned? Helen

Ding for the correct answer to the last part answered of this three part question. Continuing the theme... Russell Tovey has appeared in a number of programmes for the BBC including two episodes of Doctor Who. I will tell you that one was the 2007 Christmas special "Voyage of the Damned" but I want you to to tell me: The name of the character he played? What was the other Doctor Who episode he appeared in as the same character? And who did the Doctor try to pair him off with in that other episode? Remember (unless things have changed in the last year) no googling for the answer, Helen

That would be Russel Tovey

Thanks for the best wishes. In the event I came last of the three in the finale and while I could make excuses (I already knew I would probably not do well because of the sprint format, the nature of the puzzles and quite early on realising I left the recognition centre of my brain at home), I was beaten fair and square and can take nothing away from the eventual winner, Pete, and the other finalist, Dave. In the end I am frustrated with myself but satisfied as I managed to solve the puzzle book (the route to being one of the three finalists) before anyone else (if only by a few hours) and managed the last few stages of solving it without discussion. It was certainly a good experience and a pleasure to meet the team involved (including Marcus du Sautoy) and the other two finalists. You can still see clips of the TV show online and go through the first stages of the puzzle solving process. They will be releasing an updated (error-free) version of the puzzle book PDF with a short online film of the finale (which I am not really looking forward to seeing to be honest because I think I will come out looking stupid!) in the coming weeks. I would expect the 3 TV shows to be repeated at some point. I even managed some caching in the half an hour I had spare near London Euston before the (sort of unexpected) train ride to Bletchley, including a puzzle cache solved the night before of course Helen

Ummm... events on islands, up Marilyns and Munros... how can we resist. We will be going ahead of Paul for the islands. Current plan is to spend the weekend before Paul sets off getting to Skye and having a few days there before heading to Rum on the Wednesday, then to Eigg on the Saturday (the ferry goes via Canna and Muck so we will at least get to see them up close maybe even jump off for 5 minutes) ready for the event on the Monday; we will probably be up he hill early to play radios. We should then be on the ferry to Mallaig the next day and over to Inverie on the Wednesday ready for that event. We will be staying there two nights to give us a good chance of climbing Ladhar Bheinn which we will probably tackle on the Thursday (we will need some time at the top ) Our late return means we will miss the Ben Nevis CITO but we may come down to the Ben More event. It will depend on how we feel and the weather. Hope to see a few more at the events, Helen and Carolyn

We were last in Ireland in summer 2007 when we were chasing the last of the UK counties. We keep looking for an excuse to go back, particularly to get to the Atlantic coast. So... you can add 2 more Helen and Carolyn PS We may have missed it in all the posts but when is it planned to be?

Ahhhh... brings back memories that description of the route: the same that we took after the St Kilda event last year! Although we did do it a bit quicker than you describe. We got to Scrabster and decided to book the ferries there and then. It did cost more than 200 pounds for the round trip to Orkney, onto Shetland and then Aberdeen. The following morning we got the ferry to Stromness. We had twelve hours until the overnight ferry from Kirkwall to Lerwick and managed to do the three caches that were there at the time (one crossing a causeway) and explore the island. In particular we went around the Churchill Barriers and Scapa Flow; the Itailian PoW church made out of an Anderson shelter is not to be missed. So off we went to Shetland staying for a night at the campsite in Lerwick owned by the sports centre (built with the money from North Sea oil). Lots of exploring and walking around Esha Ness, Scousburgh (where the NATO communications ACE High antennas had just been cut down) and Samburgh Head, but we missed Unst and the furthest north cache. C managed to lock us out of the camper in the morning but the local garage was very good helping us get back in. Back on the overnight ferry to Aberdeen and then we drove down to the Snowdonia event. It was a great trip even after the magic of St Kilda and the Western Isles. We think we could be up for this trip too. Although we explored a lot of the two main islands it would be nice to go back, spend more time there, visit some of the smaller islands and get the new caches that have popped up that way since, Helen and Carolyn PS C is starting on the proper log for the St Kilda event now but don't hold your breath

Ding! Over to Simply Paul

I know that because I am preparing a presentation I am going to give to the radio club of which I am a member. Ummm... a question... Remember no googling or searching the web... Where would you find the Kármán line? Helen

That would be Dave Ulmer in Oregon on 4th May 2000. The cache contained a tin of baked beans! Helen