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Tyris
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
Posts: 873
Location: Beneath a vast mound of curly hair
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 Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 5:26 am Post subject: |
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| Tamir wrote: | I'm sure I meant 100. ^_^
EDIT: Interestingly enough, if I had meant 10 then my birthday would still be well-defined, and would be September 1st. But that's not it. |
1). Okay, what exactly do you mean by "add the month to the day"? Going by the obvious solution, not to mention the one that fits with using September 1 to get 10 (i.e. number the months 1-12, the days 1-31), the highest you can go is 43...
2). September is ruled out by the "slightly more mathy riddle," 9 being a multiple of 3.
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Dubbed "Tetris" by Asa... apparently. 
Keeper of Nanashi's ghostly blue visage and Felucca's hypothetical ejecting nose-cone.
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Tamir
Joined: 22 Mar 2008
Posts: 1628
Location: Israel
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| Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 5:38 am Post subject: |
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Each riddle has enough information to figure out the birthday on its own, which is why you're only supposed to read one. 
If I had only written the first riddle, and had said 10 instead of 100, September 1st would be the solution. It's true that September is wrong, but I'm just sayin. ^_^ Anyhow, adding the month to the day is exactly what you think, just with a little trick. (If I had said 10, the little trick wouldn't apply.)
I can give the answers if you want 'em. |
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Tyris
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
Posts: 873
Location: Beneath a vast mound of curly hair
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| Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 5:56 am Post subject: |
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| Tamir wrote: | | just with a little trick. |
*fishslap*
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Dubbed "Tetris" by Asa... apparently.
Keeper of Nanashi's ghostly blue visage and Felucca's hypothetical ejecting nose-cone.
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Tamir
Joined: 22 Mar 2008
Posts: 1628
Location: Israel
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| Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 5:58 am Post subject: |
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Ow. 
*sigh* This is a birthday thread, not a riddle thread. This doesn't belong. I apologize for offtopicness.
| Easy riddle solution wrote: | It's a simple matter to check which months start with the same letter as their birthstone, and there are but two: September/Sapphire and October/Opal.
The second clue is harder, since obviously adding the month to the day won't get you to 100. The trick is noticing that 100 is also a binary number (corresponding to 4). There are only three ways to reach 4 by adding two natural numbers:
1 + 3 = 2 + 2 = 3 + 1 = 4
Or in binary: 1 + 11 = 10 + 10 = 11 + 1 = 100
January 11th and November 1st are ruled out by the first clue, which means my birthday must be October 10th. |
| Mathier riddle solution wrote: | We'll call the month I was born in "m" and the day I was born on "d". According to the clue,
m*d/(m+d) = 5
m*d = 5m + 5d
m*d - 5d = 5m
d*(m - 5) = 5m
d = 5m/(m - 5)
Let's examine the possibilities. The month cannot be below 6, or else the day will be negative/infinity. That leaves only seven options, of which only m=6 and m=10 give whole numbers for d. m=6 is ruled out by the second clue since it is a multiple of 3, and therefore m=10.
d = 5*10/(10-5) = 50/5 = 10
So the birthday is October 10th. |
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Allicat
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
Posts: 1340
Location: Land of the troll.
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| Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 6:29 am Post subject: |
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Tam, that's just cruel! All these poor forumites who despise maths and you inflict it on them in the form of a riddle!
Maths is fun kids!
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Tamir
Joined: 22 Mar 2008
Posts: 1628
Location: Israel
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| Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 6:33 am Post subject: |
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| I enjoy riddles like these, so I just figured that other people might too. u_u Sowwy. |
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Tyris
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
Posts: 873
Location: Beneath a vast mound of curly hair
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| Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 10:04 am Post subject: |
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| Tamir wrote: | The trick is noticing that 100 is also a binary number (corresponding to 4). There are only three ways to reach 4 by adding two natural numbers:
1 + 3 = 2 + 2 = 3 + 1 = 4
Or in binary: 1 + 11 = 10 + 10 = 11 + 1 = 100
January 11th and November 1st are ruled out by the first clue, which means my birthday must be October 10th. |
Tam, that is more than slightly completely frickin' insane. Even laying aside the fact that 100 is a valid number in base anything (except base 1, which isn't so much a number system as it is a visual representation of a quantity), the whole 10 + 10 = 100 thing follows even less logic and sense than most lateral thinking puzzles. 10 in binary would be 1010 - what you did instead was take the number 10 and then pretend it was the binary representation of 2 instead of the decimal representation of 10. And that makes no sense.
*goes to put head in an icebath*
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You can't look dignified when you're having fun.
Dubbed "Tetris" by Asa... apparently.
Keeper of Nanashi's ghostly blue visage and Felucca's hypothetical ejecting nose-cone.
"It's a sad thing when a man loses his cookie." - Nem |
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Tamir
Joined: 22 Mar 2008
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Location: Israel
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| Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 10:35 am Post subject: |
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Okay, so I'll grant that it's really difficult to tell how hard a riddle like that is, and I guessed wrong. Why did I use binary? 'cause who uses anything but binary and decimal?? (Some use hex, but that really doesn't apply.)
The only trick is treating the numbers as though they're in base two. It's valid to say that 10 + 10 = 100 in binary. That makes a lot more sense than saying that 10 + 10 = 10100, I think. Doesn't seem so far fetched to me.
But I'm sorry. u_u Anyhow, the mathier riddle was very straightforward. |
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Asa
Joined: 10 Apr 2008
Posts: 3443
Location: Grammar Police HQ. Watch your language, I'm armed with the NYTimes Style Book AND Strunk and White!
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| Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 10:41 am Post subject: |
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I think it makes sense... Although, using binary was cruel. *double-bops Tam* And I think it making sense to me might only be because I don't know binary, so really, anything could make sense. I don't think it's anything to get worked up over, though, Tetris.
I think we're abusing the spoiler-text color. Let's stop.
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Last edited by Asa on Mon Aug 18, 2008 10:43 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Nem
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
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Location: England
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| Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 10:42 am Post subject: |
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It just looks complicated. Mainly because Tam's showing off
A binary number is made up of switches that represent real numbers, each switch representing double the previous number. like this:
1
2
4
8
16
32
etc
A zero indicates a switch which isn't active and a one indicates a switch which is active. You can also express binary using Y and N or any other two symbols to represent on and off states. The real trick is you really read binary from right to left.
So 100 is the same as
YNN
Or
1 N
2 N
4 Y
I got it, but then again I do a bit of programing so my calc displays numbers as binary hex and conventional underneath each other.
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Tamir
Joined: 22 Mar 2008
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Location: Israel
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| Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 10:43 am Post subject: |
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I wasn't trying to show off!  Just trying to make something not-too-difficult to figure out, that still would require some thinking. And I failed. It's hard! |
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Asa
Joined: 10 Apr 2008
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Location: Grammar Police HQ. Watch your language, I'm armed with the NYTimes Style Book AND Strunk and White!
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| Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 10:45 am Post subject: |
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It's because it's so simple to you. It would be like me telling someone to sing a particular song that I can sing backwards in my sleep, but the other person still doesn't have the basic skills to manage it. Don't stress it, Tam-tam.
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Keeper of the Library and the Gateway to Haven
Nem: "It's the sort of face you just know is getting ready to poke you with something sharp."
BS: "...then insist you eat a brownie."
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If we shadows have offended,
Think but this and all is mended...
Give me your hands if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends. |
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JackAce
Joined: 01 Jun 2008
Posts: 673
Location: 53°04'N 8°53'E
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| Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 11:44 am Post subject: |
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Attention all Citizens!
Please report to your local Forum-Rules-Enforcement-Office to recieve your rightful Poodling.
Thank you for your Cooperation.
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Tenshi
Joined: 18 Apr 2008
Posts: 2594
Location: Star Stuff
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| Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 3:51 pm Post subject: |
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Lope wins the funny post of the day award.
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Tyris
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
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Location: Beneath a vast mound of curly hair
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| Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 8:05 pm Post subject: |
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| Tamir wrote: | | The only trick is treating the numbers as though they're in base two. It's valid to say that 10 + 10 = 100 in binary. |
Yes, it is valid to say that 10 + 10 = 100 in binary. However, it's not valid to say that 10 in decimal is 10 in binary. That's a highly twisted leap of logic, and maybe we're just being too straightforward but this is maths - it's supposed to obey a strict set of rules and mathematical riddles should be able to be worked out without inventing new rules.
| Tamir wrote: | | That makes a lot more sense than saying that 10 + 10 = 10100, I think. |
Agreed... since "the moon is made of cheese" makes more sense than that. The 10s are in base 10 and the 20 is in base 2, but now you've mixed up the bases in the same equation. Which is pretty much just biting your thumb at any kind of common sense.
| Asa wrote: | | I don't think it's anything to get worked up over, though, Tetris. |
Who's getting worked up? The icebath was for the poor overheated brain that couldn't cope with the illogic.
Oh, and there was the fishslap. But it was only a haddock, not like we used a monkfish or anything...
_________________
You can't look dignified when you're having fun.
Dubbed "Tetris" by Asa... apparently.
Keeper of Nanashi's ghostly blue visage and Felucca's hypothetical ejecting nose-cone.
"It's a sad thing when a man loses his cookie." - Nem |
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