Tel Aviving the time.

My fall season globetrotting continues from country to country, city to city… What’s nice about it this year is that the weather just about everywhere is real good. My autumn coat hasn’t left the corner of my suitcase once yet.

Alas, the itinerary – as always – has been very intense – an intenserary! – and some of the ports of call have been decidedly un-resort-like, so dipping into some nice warm sea sadly hasn’t worked out. Until today! For here I am on the beach of Tel Aviv. Hurray! After the very tense official part of my visit to Israel I finally got to the shores of the Med for some serious chilling. Phew.

Beach time in Tel Aviv

But my beaching it in the Middle East is hardly worthy of a blog post in itself. However, while vegging out, I noticed in the corner of my eye a digital display on the side of the lifeguards’ tower. It took it in turns to show the time of day and the current temperature, much like similar digital displays the world over. But this one was a little different…

Beach time in Tel Aviv

It turned out that the digital display flickered – showing the full time or temperature most of the time, but then showing just a few of the diodes that make up the digits for a split second, due to some kind of fault. Not that I noticed – as those split seconds were too quick for the human eye to perceive – but a photographic eye… Yep – when I looked at the pic later it showed the display with just a few of the diodes lit up.

So this got me thinking…

…about a brainteaser with digital clocks…

So later I started putting one together, offline as it were.

So, here it is:

A photographer took three pics of a clock precisely every minute. But when he checked the film, he saw that not all the diodes lit up all the time. On the left are his pix, and on the right is how the clock looks like with all diodes lit. What three times of the day were shown on the clocks in each pic, remembering there’s a precisely minute between them?

Tel Aviv beach brainteaser

Let me see your answers in the comments!

READ COMMENTS 8
Comments 8 Leave a note

    Justin

    Is it:
    1)5:58
    2)5:59
    3)6:00
    ?

    David D

    6: 50 6:51 6:52 ? Or 8:50 – 51 -52 ?
    I don’t know, I’m not good with that kind of “enigmas”… But very nice page, thanks for sharing those moments with us

    Francis

    5:58
    5:59
    6:00

    Richard “Wrauu” Mor

    5:58
    5:59
    6:00

    Andrey Esin

    Hello, Eugene.
    I think that solution to brainteaser is:
    1. 05:58
    2. 05:59
    3. 06:00

    Rolf

    Looks like it’s either 0658, 0659 and 0700 OR 0858, 0859 and 0900.

    Andrey Esin

    It can’t be 7 or 9 in hours, cause due picture it can be only 2 6 or 8.

    Eugene Kaspersky

    Wow! Next next I should post a more serious brainteaser! :)

    The correct answer is:
    05:58
    05:59
    06:00

Leave a note