The first of five clues. Each one below gives a little more away.
My name is two Danish words meaning play well.
By sheer volume, I am the largest tyre manufacturer on Earth.
A piece made in 1958 still fits a piece made this morning.
Standing on me barefoot is a recognised form of suffering.
Small plastic bricks that click together.
Lego
Two eight-stud bricks fit together 24 ways. Six of them fit together 915 million ways. That is why the box never runs out.
Ole Kirk Christiansen was a Danish carpenter making wooden toys when a fire destroyed his workshop, which is roughly how he ended up in plastic. The patent that matters was filed in 1958 and covered the tubes underneath, which grip the studs of the piece below and give the brick its clutch. The tolerance is the whole business: the moulds are accurate to within a few thousandths of a millimetre, which is why a brick moulded before the Moon landings still clicks onto one moulded this morning. The company makes more small rubber tyres each year than any tyre manufacturer.
Reading five clues at once is not the game. In the real thing they arrive one at a time and every wrong guess costs an hour. Play mystery #18 · today's mystery · the vault
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