Post by Salzmank on Jun 17, 2017 1:00:56 GMT
Just got a reply back from St. Louis. As far as he's aware, apart from colons used singly to denote ratios, neither they nor question marks have any significance in maths. Nor, as depicted in the puzzle, in computer programming, nor any codes he has come across. He's as stumped as we are.
I hope the solution is indeed an "aha, of course!" moment, as Bat suggested, and not a wind-up. I would be very disappointed if it is. Then again, Pete did create an ingenious puzzle here, so he certainly has the skill and mind for creating brilliant, seemingly insoluble puzzles. Now, if only brimfin were still here...