Stanford Engineering Puzzle

July 2007

The Clean Slate Design for the Internet has compelled people to start thinking about the question of whether the Internet we have today is really the only Internet we could ever have. Not long ago the San Francisco Chronicle even devoted an editorial to the subject.

As part of the program for revamping the Internet, Professors Nick McKeown and Leonid Kazovsky are figuring out how to integrate repsonsive, cheaper, lower-power, and faster optical switches into the backbone architecture through something they call "Lightflow." This is the inspiration for our puzzle. Directions for puzzle In this puzzle your job is to make connections across the Internet, by connecting the fiber optic cables that make data flow. For fun we will post (below) the names of every ten alumni who successfully complete the puzzle and e-mail the secret word in the subject line to staff member Marge Kastner. She'll post entry number 1, 11, 21, 31, 41, etc.

You must have Flash installed to run this puzzle, which was designed by Scott Kim of Shufflebrain and programmed by Larry Doyle of Cyberiandesign.

All solutions and their attendent alumni will be recorded in our Puzzology database for honorary degrees next June. To check out the degree earners this year please see the Puzzology page.

"Winning" entries

We're breaking the rules this month. Here are the first 22 answers. We'll start up with every 10th answer with #31.

1) Kevin Shen
2) Rick Doherty
3) Michael Connors
4) Anthony Vitale
5) Joshua Webb
6) Stephanie Sud
7) Allan Abbott
8) Michele Lambe
9) Francesco Buonora
10) Darin McGrew
11) Clark Barrett
12) Mike Simmons
13) Rusty Schweickart
14) Jason Wolfe
15) Misty Davies
16) Marius Meissner
17) Viren Bhanot
18) Alex Smith
19) Edward Conklin
20) Alex Starns
21) Mark Aragon
22) Daniel Levner
31) Nick Reeck
41) Darlene Goins
51) Mark Kahn
61) Chip Classanos
71) Sophia Wang Traweek
81) Eric Harp

Do you want to try your hand at past puzzles? Go to our Archive page.