Yeah!!! I convinced somebody. Finally, I can stop. ------------------ RealGM Gafford Art Artisan Cakes
You're all wrong! You haven't said what floor the clock is on, nor the frame of reference. Clocks run at different speeds at different points on the earth! What if the clock were on a really fast spaceship? One traveling at near-light speeds. Damn, time dilation would completely throw these answers out the window!!!! Muhahahahaha! ... lol. How silly can we make it? ------------------ Yugo grills, Yugo mills, Check out the oil my Yugo spills...
Of course the fault in your math here is that people don't tell time by the "wind up". Since your guy is waiting for the gong "not to strike" (still laughing at that), is he also waiting for the windup and not the gong which will signify the beginning of the hour? Your gong "not to strike" point makes no sense because we're asking how long the clock takes to strike 3 o'clock, not how long it takes for a person to realize it's 3 o'clock. Whether or not the person can tell it's 3 o'clock or not is irrelevant. Think about it this way : If I blindfold myself and cover my ears to not hear any of the gongs, does that mean it's not 3 o'clock? Of course not. It was 3 when it was 3, no matter when I, as the listener, was sure it was 3. And as for the winding up... good grief. That's about as off the wall as it gets. I can just see people sitting around saying "I hear it winding up, it must be 2". The first gong signifies the start of the time interval... all your winding up did was add unnecessary complexity and an erroneous outcome to a simple solution. Yeah, i know them's fightin' words, but I had to say 'em. BTW, I really do like this riddle like Juan said. And no hard feelings Juan, keep them coming if you like, but you've yet to convince me and I've yet to convince you, but this is about as mentally challenging a problem as I've had in a year or so. Haha. At least it causes people to think. Well except for that pansy Band Geek Mobster who waffles more than George Bush at a IHOP. ------------------ Yugo grills, Yugo mills, Check out the oil my Yugo spills...
This is not just a math question; this is a philosophy question. I'm not doing a lot of mathematical gymnastics as you accuse (I think we actually agree on the math here), I'm doing philosophical gymnastics. If your math professor thinks the answer is 4 (and can you consider for a moment that an Authority might be wrong?), it's because he's thinking of it as just a math question. This it really can't be because it begs the question, really, of what is the Platonic Clock. The clock has a use value (and what other value can a made thing have other than the one that it was both made to do and used to do?), which is to tell the time. The gongs have a use value, which is to announce to people the time the clock has determined with a sound. The gongs are an audial language that the clock has to speak with humanity: it sounds one gong for every o'clock with each gong coming at a given interval after the previous gong. Its communication cannot be accurately understood (and with its understanding comes the fulfillment of the clock's gongs' meaning for existence) until you finish letting it speak. You can't know it's done until you wait out the final pause. That pause the hearer listens to takes time and must be counted. If it is not counted, the gongs are unintelligible and may as well not have been struck in the first place. Can we really say that 2 o'clock was "struck" if no one can comprehend that to mean it is 2 o'clock? Certainly, it makes a sound (as the soundwaves can attest) but the symbolism contained in the sounds does not exist unless there is a sentient mind to comprehend them. Therefore: 2 o'clock = gong+pause+gong+pause = 2 seconds gong = 0 seconds therefore, 0+pause+0+pause = 2 seconds pause = 1 second And, 3 o'clock = gong+pause+gong+pause+gong+pause = 0+1+0+1+0+1 = 3 seconds. As for overanalyzing, you're not done until you arrive at the right answer. In this case, it is 3 seconds. ------------------ RealGM Gafford Art Artisan Cakes
lol. This will be my last contribution. I'll be content letting you think it's 4 seconds when it is not. But, I think I may have been a little unclear in my last post, so I wanted to clear any confusion before submitting to a hung jury. I will read your reply without comment. The guy listening and the clock winding are two different scenarios. I'm thinking of the clock striking in terms of work being done. There are different scenarios based on the perspective we wish to take in considering the riddle. In scenario 1, the hearer does the work; in scenario 2, the clock does the work. In scenario 1, the hearer's work starts when the first gong strikes. The work continues through each succcessive gong and stops when the hearer realizes that the clock won't gong anymore. For 2 o'clock, this consists of gong1, pause1, gong2, and pause2. Only when he does not hear the 3rd gong is the hearer's work done. In scenario 2, we consider the clock's work and assume the hearer is irrelavant. For the clock, the work starts before the first gong sounds, because the clock must do some work to get that hammer to swing. I'm calling this the wind-up. So, for 2 o'clock, there is wind-up1, gong1, wind-up2, gong2. In both scenarios, the time taken in the gong is zero because it is simply the point in time when the sound is created. Its existence is necessary only to define boundaries of the units of work being done: the pause in scenario 1 and the wind-up in scenario 2. So in both cases you have 2x = 2 so x = 1 second. So 3 o'clock = 3x = 3 seconds. ------------------ RealGM Gafford Art Artisan Cakes
