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[dopefiend]

[PUZZLE] #146 - You Are Cordially Invited

[oliverkeers13]

Are there any times on the card?

[dopefiend]

no! i was wondering if there was anything in the old perplexcity files about the time guards start their shifts? if not i'm baffled. I've seen these riddles before, but don't they always give you a time?

[BrianEnigma]

What if Sinister and Dexter are the big and little hand on the clock? They start at 12:00, meet up a little after 1 (1:06-ish?), a little after 2 (2:12-ish?, etc. For the life of me, I don't have a mechanical clock around, aside from a half-assembled made-entirely-of-paper one that doesn't have that particular mechanism yet.

[tanner]

dont spose the names mean anything to the puzzle do they -- like left right -- clockwise anti clockwise etc -- it dont help i know

[ScarpeGrosse]

Latin root wise, Dextra is usually right, while Sinestra is usually left.

Dunno if that helps

[tanner]

i know that -- i was wondering if it helped

[strife777]

IIRC, the answer to this should be 7:38 pm give or take a few seconds. Each hour interval should be 5.454545.. minutes added to the original, so around 1, the hour and minute overlap at 1:05 and 20 something seconds. Someone check if I'm right, I'm doing this from memory from and old puzzle book I have that had something VERY similar.

[Leeravitz]

Yeah. Um. So, boiling this one down to brass tacks - we know:

1. That the two brothers meet like *clockwork* at the Fellow's Garden.

2. That they are making progress around the Academy Grounds, but always meet in the Fellow's Garden.

3. That because one of them walks faster than the other, they keep meeting at slightly differing points within the Fellow's Garden. (so, they are either following a consistently forward momentum, or a consistently retrograde one).

4. That they have to achieve this seven times.

Now, I agree this seems incomprehensible without more info. But, okay - they are said to meet *like clockwork*, so we assume that there is no inconsistency in how long it take them to reach each other - their perambulations always take exactly an hour, say. We may assume (from the names, and the clockwork allusion) that they move clockwise and counter - clockwise relative to one another before meeting in the garden, which they must do consistently after every requisite time interval (say, an hour). They meet each time at a different point (clearly, as this is always in the Garden, the distinction between them is a matter of only a short difference in distance), but, unless this contradicts what I have said above and would mean (ever so slightly) that on each turn their pace either momentarily lessens or quickens, I don't see why that's actually vitally relevant.

What we would need to know is how *long* it takes them to make seven circuits of the Academy grounds, what the slight slippage per 'turn' adds or subtracts from their journey time (if anything), and therefore whether it needs to be factored into an overall sum.

The only way I can think of the actual positioning of the brothers being relevant is if, they are either on a clockface, or their positioning relative to the Gardens, replicates the positioning of a timing mechanism - say, where they stand causes their shadows to act like a gnomon on a sundial.

But I agree - given the info we have, how can any of this be accurately worked out? Do we have a complete map of the Academy grounds that can be referred to? Are there any clues on the Academy website?

[tanner]

its the word "meet" that made me think they came in opposite directions -- else would be "passed" or "overtook" or something -- thats the only reason i thought maybe sinister was going anticlockwise

so please forget


roman marching:-

by the Sinister Quick March --- Sinister Dexter Sinister Dexter Sinister Dexter ...

[Scott]

noting the date:
January 15th 2004
that's The Annual fFounder's Ball, the night before the cube was stolen, of course.
The only thing we know about time is "the cube was stolen sometime after 2AM."

[toongoon]

I'm thinking this has something to do with orbits and alignment on January 15, 2004. The problem seems to be that this all occurs in one day making it a bit more difficult. Something is nagging at my brain but I can't pull it out.

[Leeravitz]

We've got to be careful here, as there are two levels of time to deal with. Yes, the invitation is for the night that the Cube was stolen (i.e. beginning of last year), but the story of the brothers is supposedly ancient. They could have been perambulating round the Garden 500 years previously.

[diddymac]

It doesn't say ancient, just old.

[yanka]

Oh, I'm totally with Brian and strifey here: they simply have to be clockhands - it would make sense that one of them would "walk a little slower" - because it takes the hour hand the same amount of time to cover 1/12 of the distance that the minute hand covers.

So, here are the times hands meet:

1. 12:00
2. 1:06
3. 2:12
4. 3:16
5. 4:22
6. 5:28
7. 6:34
8. 7:38
9. 8:44
10. 9:50
11. 10:55

When do they begin the rounds? For some reason, the natural answer seems to be "at midnight", so I think I'm going to go with "6:34" as opposed to 7:38

EDIT: The correct answer is actually 6:32.727272... (obviously, it is more correct to do the math than to sit around winding a watch )