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Subj:.....The
Crazy Clock Of Zurich (S622)
From the book
"Mathematical Puzzles of Sam Loyd"
Edited by Martin Gardner
From: Dover Publications in 1959
When will the clock
next show the correct time?
Swiss tourists will
recognize in the accompaning sketch a
deserted church at
a lonely spot near the outskirts of Zurich,
and recall the weird
story of its bewitched clock. Omitting
the supernatural
and mysterious features of the story, by which
the tourist is regaled
with many versions, it may be briefly
stated that the church
was built about the middle of the fif-
teenth century.
It was furnished with a clock by the oldest
citizen of the place,
a man named Jorgensen, reputed to be the
founder of the manufacture
of clocks, for which the place has
become noted.
The clock was started
at six o'clock in the morning, accom-
panied by the display
of ceremony with which any event of
slightest importance
is always inaugurated by the Swiss. Un-
fortunately, the
hands of the clock had been mounted on the
wrong pinions.
The hour hand started off while the minute
hand revolved twelve
times slower, with what the peasants
termed the "dignity
of the hour hand."
After the strange
antics of the bewitched timepiece had been
explained to the
aged and infirm clockmaker, he insisted on
being carried in
his bed to witness the strange phenomenon.
Due to an astonishing
coincidence, when he arrived, the time
as indicated by the
clock was perfectly correct. This had such
an effect on the
old man that he actually died of joy. The clock,
however, continued
its strange antics and was looked upon as
bewitched.
No one was bold enough to repair or even wind it,
so its works have
rusted to pieces, and all that remains is the
curious problem which
I now propose.
If the clock was
started at six o'clock, as shown in the pic-
ture, with the hour
hand moving twelve times faster than the
other as explained,
when will the hands first reach a point
which will indicate
the correct time? |
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