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Tape Measure Trick Helps You Solve 'Where's Wally?' Puzzles Quickly

Tape Measure Trick Helps You Solve 'Where's Wally?' Puzzles Quickly

Where's Wally? puzzle books are a staple of every childhood, but this trick using a tape measure can save you a lot of time

Tom Wood

Tom Wood

If you're the kind of person who has spent hours sitting around staring at Where's Wally? books searching for the eponymous red and white striped character, someone has actually been out and crunched the numbers to come up with an easy way to help you.

Of course, we all know about Where's Wally? - he's known by different names around the world, but he's an iconic part of rainy days and childhood boredom.

The idea is to pick the titular character out of a crowded page filled with people and little Easter eggs to be discovered on the way.

But, it can be frustrating, that's for sure.

Any ideas?
Walker Books

However, if you want to find him more easily most of the time - which kind of negates the point of the whole exercise, but whatever - you need to head for the toolbox and get out a tape measure.

According to publication Slate, the idea of randomness in the books simply isn't true, as it's hard to do something truly random.

The creator Martin Handford has said in the past that he didn't even try to place Wally in somewhere at complete random.

He once told Scholastic: "As I work my way through a picture, I add Wally when I come to what I feel is a good place to hide him."

So, Slate set about mathematically analysing all of the patterns by mapping them out with a tape measure on the go.

Grab a tape measure and have a look.
Walker Books

It turns out that more than half of the time, Wally is to be found in one of two 1.5 inch tall areas of the page.

One of those spots is three inches from the bottom of the page, and the other is seven inches from the bottom of the page, extending across the whole two-page spread.

So, if you head to those places first, you'll find Wally quickly about half of the time.

Of course, it's not fool proof - he's sometimes in the corners or right in the middle, but those are less likely, so you're better starting in these sections then moving along if you don't find him.

Seriously, where is he?
Walker Books

They even ran a test on this theory, asking two colleagues to square off against each other, with one armed with a tape measure.

The one with the tape measure and the knowhow found Wally first every single time.

So, next time you're wiling away a rainy afternoon, you'll know what you need to do if you can't find Wally.

Featured Image Credit: Walker Books

Topics: Books, Interesting, UK Entertainment, Weird