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11 May 2010
Time Riddle: What do the following times of day have in common: 4:38, 6:49, 1:22, 5:11, and 8:27?
(You got the answer I had in mind, Obscure Reference. I might have known you would! I'm curious about how many people still think in terms of analog clock hands...)
The ones I chose are times which give best approximations (to the nearest minute) of a 90-degree angle between the hands. Including 3:00 and 9:00 would have been too much of a hint, I thought.
This is related to my old Wendell's Law* of Temporal Relevance: "If a stopped clock is right twice a day, then a clock running backwards is wrong twice as often."
*while I have generally distanced myself from Wendell, I'm letting him keep his 'Laws', like his Law of Progressive Education: "When you teach a child to Question Authority, you are inevitably the first Authority to be Questioned" and his Law of Perception: "We all construct our own reality. Some of us just use better raw materials." and others. One of the reasons I quit Wendell was because I'd run out of New Laws. Now if only Bill Maher would realize he's run out of New Rules.
Shoot, I should have paid closer attention to Wendell, "When you teach a child to Question Authority, you are inevitably the first Authority to be Questioned" is currently coming true in my house.
Also, they are all time I go fetch another cuppa coffee. BRB, you want cream&sugar guys?
I have a memory from when I was 10 or 11 years old. We were doing little brainteasers in class, one of which was "How many times in a day are the hands on a clock at right angles?" A few of us figured out that it would happen basically twice every hour, so it'd be something like 48 times*. But the teacher insisted that it could only happen at 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock. It was the first time I really realised that teachers don't magically know everything all the time.
* Actually it's 44 times, because of the way the hour hand 'catches up' once every full revolution, but we had the principle right.
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