Time for insomniacs
WHEN I went to bed last night I glanced at my digital bedside clock just before dozing off. When I stirred briefly between one and two hours later, I glanced at the clock again and confirmed that I had been asleep for that long. And then I had another sleep and when I stirred again, an exact number of hours after first dozing off, I again confirmed this on the clock.
When I can鈥檛 sleep I often ponder on the numbers displayed on the clock (like noting at bedtime one evening that the 1056 on the clock, as illustrated above, was the product of my age and my house number). On those three occasions when I looked at the clock last night, one of the numbers which I saw was palindromic, another was a perfect square and the other consisted of consecutive digits in increasing order.
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In fact what I鈥檝e just told you in the previous paragraph is rather misleading: it isn鈥檛 true about the three actual times because on the middle occasion I was very drowsy and I didn鈥檛 look at the clock but at its reflection in the bedside table top. I didn鈥檛 realise my mistake immediately because the number I saw did seem like a reasonable time. What time did I first doze off?
A 拢10 book token will be awarded to the sender of the first correct answer opened on Thursday 5 October. The Editor鈥檚 decision is final. Please send entries to Enigma 838, New 女生小视频, King鈥檚 Reach Tower, Stamford Street, London SE99 0BB. The winner of Enigma 832 was Andrew Theaker of Glasgow.
Answer to Enigma 832
61.8 per cent.
