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        riddles >> hard >> Calendar Cubes I really not so hard
        
(Message started by: onlyme722 on Feb 29^th, 2008, 4:19pm)

Title: Calendar Cubes I really not so hard
Post by onlyme722 on Feb 29^th, 2008, 4:19pm

"a corporate business man has two cubes on his office desk. every day he arranges both cubes so that the front faces show the current day of the month. what numbers are on the faces of the cubes to allow this?

Note: You can't represent the day "7" with a single cube with a side that says 7 on it. You have to use both cubes all the time. So the 7th day would be "07". I also should note that this is a really sly problem. Almost unfair."

I don't get why this is considered hard. I got it in about 1 minute when I realized I had no room for one final #, and then realized that there was another number that can be easily confused with this number when looked at from...."a different angle"

I won't give it away, this should be easy. There are three #s that must be on each cube, two of which are accounted for due to the fact that every month there are 2 days that consist of the same number (ie 66, but that's not in any month ;) ), and all three of these numbers must work with any number on both blocks. So think about it figure out these three numbers, which is quite easy actually. The hard part is coming to that "ahhhhhhh, duh!" conclusion...

Once you have figured out which three numbers must be on BOTH blocks, just assign the rest of the numbers to either block of choice, and if you do this from highest to lowest of your remaining choices, you will find a number that there is no room for. Just look at what is already there, and refer to my first hint. That may be why they think it's "unfair".

Title: Re: Calendar Cubes I really not so hard
Post by Icarus on Feb 29^th, 2008, 7:41pm

There are a few others that are also fairly simple. "Hard". "Medium", "Easy" on the Riddle pages was a judgment call William made at the time he placed them. A number of them he has later felt himself were misplaced. However, it isn't that big of a deal, so he hasn't bothered to move them.

So just rejoice that you are able to solve a "Hard" problem!

In the forums, we do enforce some rules over what goes in which forum, but again, this is a matter of judgment, and has more to do with the problem type than with the problem difficulty. For example, "What am I thinking" type puzzles - in which you have to essentially guess the author's thought processes in order to solve the puzzle - will go in one of "What Happened", "What am I", or "Easy", though they are usually next to impossible to figure out. We try to reserve "Hard" for problems with a definite "spoor" to follow, but a truly fiendish path to get there.