Sorta Game — the daily ordering puzzle
Put the world in order… sorta.
Three quiet rounds, five things each, and one hidden way to arrange them. Trust your instinct and see how close your order comes to the truth.
Sorta Game puzzle #47 · August 26, 2026
Three rounds of five things, each with a hidden scale to sort them by — then one last guess at the theme tying all three together. Here’s what this puzzle asks.
Round 1
Order these tools by their typical maximum horizontal field of view, from narrowest to widest.
- A commercial Google Street View mapping rig
- A laptop's built-in video conferencing sensor
- A construction surveyor's optical transit level
- A pair of standard birdwatching binoculars
- A residential smart-home video doorbell
Round 2
Order these technological processes by the typical continuous time required to record a single complete capture, from shortest to longest.
- An automated red-light enforcement system capturing a speeding vehicle's license plate
- A ground-based astronomical observatory gathering light for a deep-space nebula observation
- A mechanical cinema camera exposing a single frame of traditional 24-fps film
- A desktop flatbed scanner completing a full-page color sweep
- A high-speed laboratory sensor freezing a supersonic bullet in flight
Round 3
Order these tracking and sensing systems by the typical physical distance separating the sensing element from its subject, from closest to farthest.
- A biometric iris scanner at an automated airport e-gate
- A remote-sensing satellite mapping continental topography from low Earth orbit
- The reading laser inside a standard computer Blu-ray drive
- A cable-suspended broadcast camera flying above a live professional football game
- A medical ultrasound wand actively imaging a patient's internal organs