Question of the day

[Phil Thomas]

Just after mid day tomorrow we will have

12.34 and 56.789 seconds.

Blink and you miss it

[Patrick McGovern]

I think that is right. I also kn ow it is entirely useless info!

Don't worry Jonathan we are used to it

[Phil Thomas]

Had some time on my hands tonight.

No similar numerical sequences are about to come up in either the islam or jewish calendars.

However in the French revolutionary calendar - the SI system stuck but the decimal time did not. (100,000 seconds per day etc etc)

We are currently in year 222
In the 22nd day of decade no 9

Huh missed all the twos by 7 decades

[Phil Thomas]

Here's a follow up mental arithmetic question.

Year 222 in Roman numerals is expressed as CCXXII
How soon after 222 does that pattern recur ? (aa-bb-cc)

I had to to use pen and paper - but it was late in the evening

[Andy Howie]

MMXXII

[Phil Thomas]

So nearly Correct Andy

Answer is 1800 - picky eh? (How Soon After CCXXII)

Strange that those two numbers on roman numerals translate in modern figures as

222 and 2022.
differing only by the zero - which was not around in Roman times.


Another question how many knights can you put onto a chess board such that no two attack one another?

And no its not 64 white knights which don't attack one another (because they are the same colour).

Early answers shaded out please

[Andrew McHarg]

My answere here >> 32 - Reasoning: knights always attack the colour of square opposite to that which they are sitting on. So you can put a knight on every square of the same colour, and none of them will attack each other. <<

[Clement Sreeves]

That question was on QI, along with a reference to Fairy Chess, which is an obscure chess problem solving discipline which I'm guessing even a lot of chess players will not have heard of!

[Andy Howie]

I saw it there as well which is why I did not answer