Terrazzo hints for Friday, October 23, 2026

Today's subject comes from cosmos.

The caption reads: “Every year, by about the width of your thumbnail.”

You place 9 stones into a frame of 46 cells. Every cell is filled exactly once.

• Kinship. Same-coloured stones that touch make a region. Today: gold forms 6 separate regions of 5, 5, 3, 3, 1, 1; lapis blue forms 4 separate regions of 4, 1, 1, 1; moss green forms 2 separate regions of 5, 1; terracotta forms 4 separate regions of 8, 4, 2, 1.
• The Vein. The vein cells must form one unbroken path between the frame's two notches, with no branches and no loops.

Start with the largest region the Laws name: it has the fewest ways to fit.

The Moon Is Leaving

The moon raises a bulge of ocean, but the earth rotates faster than the moon orbits, so friction drags that bulge slightly ahead of the moon's position. The bulge's gravity tugs the moon forward, lifting it into a wider orbit — currently 3.8 centimetres a year, measured by bouncing lasers off reflectors left by Apollo crews. The energy comes out of the earth's spin, so our days are lengthening by about 1.7 milliseconds per century. Fossil corals from 400 million years ago show growth bands for a year of roughly 400 days. The tide is a brake, and the moon is being paid in altitude.