The Science of Wordle

 By Raymond K. Nakamura

Do you play Wordle? If you haven’t heard, it’s a popular online word game. It has become a pandemic diversion and also reminds me of DOING science. It’s not a perfect analogy, of course. As far as I know, nature was not BUILT by an engineer and has not yet been bought up by the New York TIMES.

Starting

I FIRST saw a New Yorker cartoon by Canadian cartoonist and picture book MAKER Zoe Si, of a sleeping person dreaming of a SHEEP jumping over a FENCE made of yellow and GREEN squares. It was CLEAR that the squares must be significant, but at the time, I had no idea why. Then I saw people on my social MEDIA posting images of yellow and GREEN squares on GRIDS of different SIZES. At last, I noticed in someone’s comments that this was a game called Wordle.

A similar combination of curiosity, comraderie, and coincidence led to my main scientific projects. For example, when I was in Japan looking for a research subject, I went to the SHORE with another grad student, to collect edibles for a PARTY. I found out that the species of gooseneck barnacle in Japan had not been well studied, so I decided to take that up. 

 

Problem

The goal of Wordle is to guess the unknown five-letter word (which is why I made the five-letter WORDS in this post in caps — see if I missed any). This is like the challenge of finding a suitable scientific problem that can be solved within grad school. Some graduate students get handed problems to SOLVE, but I THINK half the fun of DOING science is finding a suitable problem.

Wordle has one particular answer on any given day (although apparently some differences have AFTER the switchover to the New York TIMES site). In science, only nature really “KNOWS” the WHOLE answer to your particular problem. This is BASED on an assumption that you are looking at some question that deals with some unchanging aspect of reality, WHICH does EXIST. A variation on Wordle, called Absurdle apparently changes the possible target word according to your guesses. MAYBE this is more like studying psychology or sociology. Another aspect of suitability is finding a challenge that matches your ability, to provide an opportunity for “flow,” the STATE WHERE you are so immersed in your activity that you lose TRACK of time.

Hypothesis

In Wordle, you type in your FIRST five-letter word. Your choice can be quite important to your subsequent success, WHICH is also true of supervisors. It seems reasonable to pick a word with as many vowels as possible. Vowels seem pretty essential, since you know that you’ll need at least one.

In science, your idea should be testable and consistent with KNOWN physical laws. Sometimes, scientists START with more of a survey, perhaps especially in ecology, when you don’t know what is GOING on. But if you look at a WHOLE BUNCH of variables, some MIGHT correlate just by chance. I have only recently realized that I may have done this by mistake in a published PAPER many YEARS ago, WHICH not many people read. Nowadays, some people pre-register THEIR hypothesis before DOING THEIR experiments to PROVE they were testing what they said they were.  

Data

After you have ENTER your GUESS in Wordle, you MIGHT see a yellow square, WHICH SHOWS that the letter is correct but in the WRONG PLACE. Or the tile MIGHT be GREEN, in WHICH case, the letter is both correct and in the RIGHT PLACE.

In science, you might have the sort of result that either supports or does not support your hypothesis. In ecology though, the results COULD be just MESSY. This is WHERE statistics COMES in. I had to figure out a mathematical MODEL to approximate the growth CURVE of barnacles to make it look like something had happened.

Next STEPS

Unless you see all GREEN TILES, you must now consider a next guess, BASED on your results and your vocabulary. Some people insist on reusing the known letters, which some people call the hard RULES. WHILE others see that as a WASTE of information, and try out WHOLE OTHER combinations. Sometimes it is hard to THINK of a word that fits. And sometimes you can THINK of too many WORDS that COULD fit.

In science, if you are working in a field where others have already done some things, then you MIGHT be incorporating THEIR results to make SENSE of the conclusion. As I mentioned before, FANCY statistics MIGHT come into play to reveal some MAJOR patterns. I tested an explanation about the hydrodynamics of sand dollars that I’d seen in a marine biology colouring book.

Success

In Wordle, eventually, you come up with the all GREEN, correct answer. Then you can post an IMAGE of the yellow and GREEN squares that got you THERE. If you get it on the first shot, it just MEANS you are LUCKY or cheated, which is not really that interesting. 

In science and really in most things, luck always COMES into success, but people are not always so AWARE of how much they owe to good fortune. You MIGHT be fortunate to find a lab you are interested in happens to have room for you. Or not. When I went to Japan, I applied to many places and eventually something worked out. It was luck, but also playing the odds.

Communication

It is one THING to talk ABOUT Wordle and another to play it. Sort of like the Zen STORY ABOUT the difference between talking ABOUT WATER versus drinking it. AFTER finishing the puzzle, I have a friend who MAKES a WITTY comment ABOUT that day’s puzzle using the answer. Another friend MAKES a HAIKU USING the word of the day. She posts it late in the day to AVOID ruining it for others.

I am a lapsed scientist but I do ENJOY learning and talking ABOUT science, without having to do it. I FOUND I didn’t like getting up in the middle of the NIGHT to measure barnacles at low tide. Or APPLY to post-doctoral positions. I am more interested in finding out the results and MAYBE hearing an interesting STORY of process. I don’t feel the need to find the data myself.

Do you play Wordle? Do you do science? How does Wordle compare to your SENSE of science?