Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Hazel's Mind Bender

This one is a little more straightforward...

The people of Chesstown decide to set a record. They want to participate in the longest (chess) tournament held within 1 day. They elect the cafe owner to organize the event. At exactly 12:00 am on Sunday, the owner tells everyone to begin their games. Some good games, some bad games, some really bad games, but what can you expect over such a long day? Finally, the owner glances at the clock, which reads 11:59 pm. He stops all the games and declares the tournament over.

The next morning, the owner contacts the folks at Guinness World Records. They are very impressed. However, just as the owner prepares to announce the news to the town, he receives a call. "I'm sorry, but from the information you have provided us, your tournament does not qualify for the record. You see, your tournament ended on Monday, not Sunday." How is this possible?

Assumptions:
- the cafe owner's clock is a standard analog (like the ones you see in classrooms)
- the clock never malfunctioned, and did not stop during the day
- no one tampered with the clock
- a tournament is considered to have started and stopped in the ways mentioned above (and thus, cleaning up and incomplete games are not a factor).

Do you have the answer? ...if not, you're going to be quite upset (just as the town must have been)...

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Answer: The cafe owner forgot to "spring forward" for daylight savings. His starting time was correct, because daylight savings begins around 2 am. However, his ending time was actually 12:59 am on Monday.