A strange little side quest
Even a quick game like The Numbers sits on top of decades — and sometimes centuries — of ideas. Arthur Wynne published a diamond-shaped 'Word-Cross' in the New York World on December 21, 1913; the name later shifted to 'Cross-Word' and then 'crossword'. There is another connection worth keeping in the same mental pocket: Archery first appeared at the Olympic Games in 1900 and returned permanently to the programme in 1972 after a long absence. That gives The Numbers a little more company than it first appears to have.
