I remember when I got my first “desk” job… My desk had a funky calendar that was really nothing but two cubes and a little stand to place the two cubes side-by-side for the date. I also used a manual typewriter, but that’s just showing my age.
Anyway, this two-cube calendar didn’t indicate the month or the day of the week; just the date. Each of the six sides on the two cubes depicted a single digit. By placing some combination of the two cubes in the slots on the stand, you could indicate any date from 01 to 31. (You had to keep a cube in each slot… you wouldn’t want to hide one of them and lose it.)
Today’s question (and it’s probably a bit trickier than it seems at first glance):
What were the digits on the sides
of the two ‘date’ cubes that allowed
every possible date to appear
using both cubes?
Here’s one SOLUTION.
Comments (7)
Comment
- subscribe /
- give a gift /
- terms of service /
- about /
- contact us /
- write for us /
- ad info /
- subscriber services /
- press /
- privacy policy /
- rss /
© 2012 Mental Floss Inc. All Rights Reserved. Mental Floss is a registered trademark owned by Felix Dennis. mentalfloss.com is a trademark owned by Felix Dennis.
Disclaimer: All submissions made to mental_floss become the property of Mental Floss Inc and may be used without further permission by the submitter and without compensation to the submitter. If you do not agree to these terms, please do not submit anything to mental_floss.
There’s more than 1 possible solution -
0,1,2,3,7,8
0,1,2,4,5,6
posted by SlackJack on 12-8-2008 at 8:56 am
Also, depending on how the digits were written, a typical digital style 2 turned upside down could be a 5.
posted by mark on 12-8-2008 at 9:16 am
SlackJack’s absolutely correct; the 7/8 and 4/5 can be swapped between the two cubes. But one cube has to have 0, 1, 2, and 3… the other cube has to have 0, 1, 2, and 6 (or 9).
posted by Sandy on 12-8-2008 at 9:48 am
Since you’ll never have a day that is “00″, you only need 1 “0″ side, so another option is
0,1,2,3,4,5
1,2,6,7,8,9
posted by A on 12-8-2008 at 11:11 am
@A – you do need to have a “0″ on both cubes. Otherwise you cannot make have of the digits between the first of the month and the 9th.
Recaptcha – play publish – is my recaptcha trying to tell me something, Hmmmm.
posted by Bill on 12-8-2008 at 11:25 am
There are ten solutions. The only requirement is that both cubes must have 0, 1 and 2.
0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
0, 1, 2, 6, 7, 8
0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6
0, 1, 2, 5, 7, 8
0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 7
0, 1, 2, 5, 6, 8
0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 8
0, 1, 2, 5, 6, 7
0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 6
0, 1, 2, 4, 7, 8
0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 7
0, 1, 2, 4, 6, 8
0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8
0, 1, 2, 4, 6, 7
0, 1, 2, 3, 6, 7
0, 1, 2, 4, 5, 8
0, 1, 2, 3, 6, 8
0, 1, 2, 4, 5, 7
0, 1, 2, 3, 7, 8
0, 1, 2, 4, 5, 6
posted by Henry on 12-8-2008 at 11:36 am
The correct answer should be 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 on one cube and 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 9 on the other one. The cubes should be moveable if you can put the 6 upside down to make a 9. Plus 00 doesn’t exist.
posted by Sophy on 12-17-2008 at 3:13 pm