Friday, February 6, 2009

Friday the 13th

Since its Friday the 13th next Friday, I thought I'd post something dorky about it. When I was in high school, we used to have contest questions every now and then during the Math Club. One of those questions was actually about Friday the 13th. So here's the question:

In a given calendar year (leap years included), what is the maximum number and minimum number of Friday the 13th's that can occur???

This is an interesting problem, with a pretty sleek solution to it. Here's a clue to start you off: Actually, I'll tell you how I started it when I had to do it in the Math Club. I assumed that Friday the 13th's don't really occur all that often.. which seemed pretty reasonable at the time, and so said that 'zero' is the minimum number of Friday the 13ths that can occur in a year, and then proceeded from there. So now you're thinking, thats not a clue!! Its actually half the answer!! Well, the clue is: I was wrong :). Enjoy.

No comments:

Post a Comment