This one appeared on 29th February, 1976

quote:

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Old Father Prime

Albert Prime will be joining us again today for the 15th celebration of the anniversary of his birth since he was home on leave during the 1914-18 war. On that occasion, his son David's age plus his brother Bert's age was equal to his brother Charlie's age; Bert's age plus Charlie's age was equal to Albert's age.

All the ages except Albert's were prime numbers and Albert's was the cube of David's. All four were born on 29th February in different years and the ages above are taken by counting how many 29th Februarys they have celebrated (for example, a man born on 29th February 1956 has an age of 3 today).

In what year was Albert born?

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1880. In 1916, the only year during the 1914-1918 war which was a leap year, Albert would have celebrated
8 birthdays, David 2 birthdays, Bert 3 birthdays, and brother Charlie 5 birthdays, all primes except for Albert. Given the values of low primes and the age a person would be while serving in war this is the only possible solution, I think. The only problem see with this is that Albert would only have been 12 actual years old when Charlie was born, not impossible, but very, very young to father a child. The only thing I don't get is that in the question which was printed on Feb. 29, 1976 it says that a person born on leap day 1956 would be three, when he really would have been five, leap days having occurred in 1960, 1964, 1968, 1972 and 1976.

[ 05-07-2002, 11:21 AM: Message edited by: tim10001 ]

I am impressed Tim10001!

If you start in 1916 and count backwards 8 times 4, how do you get to 1880? No criticism, just me not getting it...

I was just using a perpetual Gregorian calendar of years. The tricky thing about this, and what, I think, is causing your confusion is that 1900 was not a leap year, as one would normally expect, given the fact that they normally occur every four years. It has to do with the overall imperfection of any, and certainly this, calendar system. Here's a quote from my "World Almanac" regarding this.

"By 1582 the accumulated error in the Julian calendar was estimated to amount to ten days. In that year, Pope Gregory XIII decreed that the day following October 4, 1582 should be called October 15, thus dropping 10 days and initiating what became known as the Gregorian calendar.

However, with the common year 365 days and a 366 day leap year every fourth year, the error in the length of the year would have amounted to a little more than 3 days every 400 years. Therefore, 3 of every 4 centesimal years (years ending in 00) were made common years, not leap years. Under this plan
1600 and 2000 are leap years; 1700, 1800 and 1900 are not. Leap Years are those years divisable by four, except centesimal years, which are common unless divisable by 400".

Whew! I hope this clears up your question.

[ 05-07-2002, 12:13 PM: Message edited by: tim10001 ]

Thanks, it did! I mixed up the rules about dividing by 400 and 100, thougt they were just the other way around...

tim, that's spot on mate (you already knew that), and you're probably the only one who's picked up the typo in the original question as printed - the quote above is verbatim

gtho4,

Not that I was likely to find the answer anyway, have decided to sulk having enjoyed the previous ones so much.

Nice one and congratulations tim10001.

Bannockburn

Thanks for a good challenge, George. And by the way, how are your horses doing at the track this year. Just curious.

hey there man, the pony's retired. He won a quite few races for the 5 of us and, being first time owners without any brains, we re-invested some of the winnings and bought another one (do you remember the one we tried to name 2 years ago?) and blew the lot - he never go to the track. The trainer rang us one day last year: 'Do you blokes own a float?' .. 'No, why?' .. 'Come and get the horse out of my stables, he's the slowest thing I've trained in 50 years'. So we sold him for bugger-all to a farmer out whoop-whoop (out yonder near the black stump), and that was the end of the partnership.

Two of us in the syndicate bought another one and gave it to our wives - we didn't have anything better to do that weekend. He's now a 3 year-old (rising 4) but still a maiden (but, to put it into perspective, at least this one got to the track), and so far has run 4th, 3rd, and 5th. Last week he went up in class and distance to run in open company, and finished 8th in a field of 9. His next run will be Wednesday next week - up in distance again, this time it'll be a mile (1600m). Tim, I'll let you know what happens, if he's not scratched

Bannockburn, I'll find a few more and put them up.

Well that's the nature of racing, I guess. Yes, I remember the naming derby you held here a couple of years ago, sorry he turned out to be such a bust.
Good luck with the current horse, I hope he breaks his maiden for you. I follow racing around here (northern California) at Bay Meadows and Golden Gate Fields and at the county fair track meets during the summer. I took my five year old niece to the meet at CalExpo (California State Fair in Sacramento) late last summer and she loved it. She did pretty well picking horses too, better than I did that day. Just dumb luck, of course, she picked 'em solely on the name and who's silks she liked the best. And she can scream really loud, and did every time they came down the home stretch. She keeps asking me when we can go again so she can bet the "exactly box". I let her keep her winnings. I don't think her parents liked that very much. Oh, well!