Solution to Don's Amazing Puzzle

Thursday, August 23, 2007 by Dave Winer.

There are six F's in the sentence. 

There is no catch. 

I found three. I went back and counted and recounted, and I was sure there were just three. So I wrote a script to see what was going on. It said there are six! Mystifying. 

Here's a screen shot of the script. 

I first ran it in DaveNet in 1997. It's usually fun. Only two people I knew back then got it right without any coaching. My uncle and Scott Rosenberg. Scott said his trick was to read the sentence backwards, something he learned as an editor at Salon. My uncle was an engineer at heart and loved puzzles. He just did what the puzzle told him to do, literally. Most people, myself included, don't. That's why it's an amazing puzzle. It teaches us about our ability to see what's right before our eyes. Don't feel bad if you got it wrong, you have a lot of company.