# THE RUMOR MILL

WEEKLY QUACK CHALLENGE! · challenge 13 · hard · 5 guesses

> Gossip Columnist Garganey slides a notebook across the desk, feathers twitching. "A rumor got loose this morning that the mayor's bread is gluten-free, Duckbert. By noon the whole pond was honking about it. I have the full whisper log — who told whom, beak to beak. Everyone blames Bertha Blabberbill; she told six ducks herself before breakfast. But her listeners kept their beaks shut! Somewhere in this log a much quieter duck lit the fuse — and every retelling spread it wider. Find the duck whose whisper ended up reaching the most ducks — or my column runs blank tomorrow!"

## Task

Each row of `whispers` records one duck telling the rumor to another. A duck's reach is the number of other ducks the rumor reaches through any chain of whispers starting with them — the ducks they told directly, the ducks those ducks told, and so on. Count each reached duck once; the whisper times do not matter. Return the name of the duck with the largest reach; on a tie, the alphabetically first. You will be working with the `whispers` and `ducks` tables.

## Tables

### `whispers` (21 rows)

| column | type |
| --- | --- |
| whisper_id | INTEGER |
| teller_id | INTEGER |
| listener_id | INTEGER |
| whispered_at | TIMESTAMP |

### `ducks` (23 rows)

| column | type |
| --- | --- |
| duck_id | INTEGER |
| name | VARCHAR |

## Data

The tables live in a DuckDB database: https://dbquacks.com/data/databases/weekly_202639_13_rumor_mill.duckdb

To query it outside the browser, attach it read-only:

```sql
ATTACH 'https://dbquacks.com/data/databases/weekly_202639_13_rumor_mill.duckdb' AS db (READ_ONLY);
USE db;
```

Play it in the browser: https://dbquacks.com/challenges/weekly/13

## Answer

The expected answer is not published. Submit on the page to have it checked.