Rabbit Holes
The sacrifice of oneself to the pursuit of knowledge Is the highest tribute to the gods.
I’ve always been drawn to codes, even if I lack any real gift for them. I’ve spent more late nights than I’d admit, fruitlessly trying to solve some puzzle when I should have been sleeping.
The Noita “eye” puzzle absorbed an embarrassing number of hours. Each time, I’d convince myself I was close - one substitution away, one layer of abstraction deeper. My enthusiasm exceeds my skill, but I keep coming back because puzzles like Kryptos or the Noita eye puzzle sit at the intersection of art, math, and mystery. They make you want to understand the system beneath the surface.
Mengenlehreuhr - The Berlin Clock
If you’ve never encountered it, the Mengenlehreuhr (“Set Theory Clock”) is a brutalist block of color that’s been marking time in Berlin since 1975. Designed by Dieter Binninger and commissioned by the Berlin Senate, it is a towering monument to esoteric timekeeping.
I first came across the Berlin Clock years ago when Jim Sanborn confirmed that the words Berlin Clock appear in the plaintext of the fourth passage of Kryptos. That’s also how I stumbled across it again recently, with the news that someone had finally found the solution to K4.
How the Berlin Clock Works
The clock’s design speaks to the elegance of trading function for form. Time in hours and minutes is read by interpreting the lights in a sort of base-5 format. Not the most intuitive display, but simple enough once understood.
- The top single lamp blinks every two seconds.
- The next row has 4 red lamps, each representing 5 hours.
- The third row has 4 more red lamps, each representing 1 hour.
- The fourth row has 11 yellow-and-red lamps, each worth 5 minutes, with the red lamps marking quarters.
- The bottom row has 4 yellow lamps, each worth 1 minute.
Implementing the Berlin Clock in Svelte
I couldn’t resist building one myself.
Svelte felt like the right fit. It always does.
Here’s the live demo:
Why It Still Resonates
The Berlin Clock is appealing as both a work of art and a riddle, the same qualities that make Kryptos and the Noita eye puzzle legendary. Each one hides meaning and complexity—the inner workings of a system exposed to us through a narrow aperture—encouraging us to peer in from different angles in an effort to understand what lies within.
To me, puzzles have become less about solving and more about cognitive fiddling. The act of tinkering with a puzzle; experimenting; testing; these things in themselves are the reward. The Art is the process, not the product.