On Friday i presented this simple little puzzle….
Albert gets a job in a clock factory. On his first day he is asked to construct a clock. He puts together the following clock…..
However, Albert has inadvertently created a clock that is different to almost every other clock of this type in the world. Can you spot why his clock is so special?
If you didn’t try to solve it, give it a go now. For everyone else, answer after the break.
As i am sure many of you figured out, Albert’s error revolves around the way in which he depicted the number four. He used the usual Roman numeral IV, whereas most clock and watch faces use IIII. If you don’t believe me, Google Roman Numeral Watch and see what comes up.
There is a bit of debate about why clocks use IIII, but most seem to think that it is needed to balance the VIII on the opposite side of the dial.
My friends and colleagues Chris French and Anne Richards have carried out some great studies using this little known fact, demonstrating that people even make the mistake when you show then a correct clock face and then ask them to copy it from memory (more details in French, C., & Richards, A.. (1993). Clock this! An everyday example of a schema-driven error in memory. British Journal of Psychology, 84, 249-253.).
Is that what you thought? Did you spot any other problem with the clock?
June 7, 2009 at 10:28 pm |
The numbers also don’t all face up like on a regular clock. Unless traditional clocks also had the numbers all face the middle…
June 7, 2009 at 10:52 pm |
I had a different answer. The shorter hand is dead on XI but the second hand is on X which normally it should be on XII.
June 7, 2009 at 11:55 pm |
Wasn’t really a puzzle. More of a trivia question.
June 8, 2009 at 10:02 am
I agree. I got it but without any satisfaction. I thought the idea was to present puzzles that illustrate interesting facets of one’s reasoning and perception – no ?
June 8, 2009 at 12:10 am |
Well blow me down! I went and looked at my antique grandfather (clock!) and sure enough, IIII it was. We;ve had the clock for about 25 years and I had never noticed …
June 8, 2009 at 4:28 pm
IIII is found only on older clocks..not all of them
June 12, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Reply to CA, I took a look at some clocks in a local garden centre, there was only one for sale with a IV the rest all had IIII.
June 8, 2009 at 12:19 am |
yep, got it (after a while!). On another matter, when do you announce my psychic ability in predicting no proof of psychic ability in Twitter experiment?
June 8, 2009 at 12:23 am |
That was one of the solutions I got. The other thing is that most dials can be read from the observer’s normal position, without having to tilt their head (as Kimbo Jones says.) I also considered the fact that most display clocks have the shorter hand (hour hand) to the left of the longer (minute) hand, so as to make a smiley face or check mark.
June 8, 2009 at 12:39 am |
I initially thought it was that all the numerals had their bases to the center, but upon doing an image search it seems this is fairly standard for a roman numeral clock.
FYI Big Ben has IV not IIII
June 8, 2009 at 1:16 am |
A similar answer to Ian’s — I thought that the hour hand ought to be 5/6 of the way to the next hour, not directly on a number, if the minute hand was on X. Most clocks have an hour hand that moves gradually, rather than popping from one hour to the next.
June 8, 2009 at 1:54 am |
Here’s ones that are done right:
Of course had I read the word “Almost” I might have got this one. I had previously thought the IIII was a sign of a cheap clock but apparently it is the standard.
http://www.web40571.clarahost.co.uk/roman/clockface.htm
June 8, 2009 at 4:57 am |
Woohoo. I’m getting better at these.
June 8, 2009 at 5:15 am |
I was afraid you’d post this as an answer. It’s no longer a common practice after the 19th century. Even the Big Ben uses IV on the clock face. If you’ve said he was in the 17th century or something like that it would’ve been a better trivia question.
June 8, 2009 at 5:21 am |
My thought was that Albert must have switched the hands because the minute hand is a little before X, but the hour hand seems to me to point just past XI, which is not a valid state for a clock. But if the hands were switched it would show 9:56 or so.
Didn’t catch the IV vs. IIII, but then my grandmother’s wall clock has IV.
June 8, 2009 at 5:51 am |
Spent a long time looking and looking at the clock, but since I have never had a roman numeral clock (and I think we don’t have too many of those around in Finland), this was really more a trivia question than a puzzle you can eventually solve with purely logical thinking. Grrh.
June 8, 2009 at 7:31 am |
I remember wondering why there was IIII instead of IV on the clock in our house when I was a kid (6 or 7). Still I didn’t solve this.
June 8, 2009 at 7:52 am |
Yep, that’s what I thought.
Strange how your mind recalls uninteresting trivia learned many years ago and not thought about since, innit?
June 8, 2009 at 8:30 am |
The numbers face out not up!
June 8, 2009 at 8:42 am |
I thought I had this one cracked, but it turns out I was totally wrong. I thought the problem was with the length of the minute hand. On every clock, or watch, I own the minute hand is long enough to overlap the numbers.
June 8, 2009 at 8:42 am |
My answer was different. I thought the 6 “VI” should be right way up.
My late Father was a watchmaker and now I do recall him explaining to me the “IIII” on Rolex’s.
June 8, 2009 at 9:11 am |
Got it. Have to confess it wasn’t that hard as I have a roman numeral clock right next to me.
June 8, 2009 at 11:09 am |
Thought it was something like that, but then I had a look at my clock (a Roman numeral one from IKEA), and it looked exactly like the one in the puzzle — it does use IV for 4. That threw me off a bit.
June 8, 2009 at 11:32 am |
*looks at watch*
Gosh! I’d never noticed that before.
June 8, 2009 at 11:51 am |
I thought the inner mesurements of the clock were off (3 different types of distances between pairs)…which makes it a bit non-circular.
June 8, 2009 at 1:59 pm |
This is the answer I came up with. It probably took me close to a half hour to figure it out as about 10-20% of pictures I found actually had the 4 as “IV”.
June 8, 2009 at 2:11 pm |
Yeah, got that, and some people have touched on the second difference, which to me is more unique: the hour hand on this clock seems to move in discrete hour increments, since it’s pointing directly at XI, with only 10 minutes left before midnight.
June 8, 2009 at 6:16 pm |
How about the fact that unlike most clocks the numerals do not line up with one another through the center.
The whole clock is off balance compared to others.
EXAMPLE: http://www.simplystamps.com/Clock_Stamp_Roman_Numeral-details.aspx
June 8, 2009 at 9:37 pm
That’s what i meant too…there are 3 types of different distances between pairs (1-7, 2-8, 3-9 and so on) radius wise
June 8, 2009 at 8:07 pm |
I’ve figured out the IV roman numeral instead of the IIII that usually appears on real clocks and the position of the hours hand. If it was intended to display 11:50 then the hand should be pointing near XII but if it was 10:50 then it should be almost XI.
June 9, 2009 at 12:20 am |
[...] Answer to the Friday puzzle! On Friday i presented this simple little puzzle…. Albert gets a job in a clock factory. On his first day he is [...] [...]
June 9, 2009 at 8:19 am |
You are spot-on with many things, Richard, but this is neither ‘a mistake’, nor an error of logic.
OK, the task of copying a clockface with the IIII converted to IV is an example of mild assumptive inattention, but that has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with this so-called ‘logical puzzle’.
You have presented the equivalent of “Trivial Pursuit”.
One either knows this random illogical fact, or one does not.
A ‘win’ on this non-puzzle solely relies on special knowledge that cannot be deduced via reason alone.
(Now, what did they tell me in sales school?
Oh yeah: “Praise, criticise, praise”)
Richard, I understand that you are pressed for time in attempting to fill a blog with fascinating stuff, and you have done far better than I could ever have hoped to do, given the herculean task!
Keep the entertaining info coming, please!
June 9, 2009 at 8:49 pm |
My answer was that the time on Albert’s clock is frozen and that it appears to be incapable of keeping the time, unlike most clocks.
June 10, 2009 at 1:23 am |
I’m quite disappointed by the negative comments that this attracted. Surely we can all take something from the posts that Richard gives us whether they are deemed true logical puzzles or not.
Let’s just enjoy something that takes us away from our daily grind, especially if it’s trivial.
Or start your own blog to ensure quality control of the posts, to your satisfaction.
Thanks.
June 12, 2009 at 5:27 pm
here here, well said Rosie!
June 12, 2009 at 3:36 pm |
I wonder if the good Mr Wiseman is really looking to see what the reactions are to the the answer of this puzzle.
Because let’s face it, it’s a trivia question at best and a dubious one at that, as the 4 IIII’s are not even that standard on clock faces.
On the first Google image results page for ‘clock roman numerals’ I counted 8 IIII’s and 9 IV’s. Hardly a comprehensive study I grant you but note-worthy nonetheless.
So, what’s really interesting to me is how much time (sic) I’ve spent dwelling on the answer to this puzzle.
)
June 12, 2009 at 5:33 pm
Ha ha, good one – “But let’s face it…” I hope that was deliberate
June 12, 2009 at 5:28 pm |
I did have the right answer courtesy of my husband, I couldn’t see it and hadn’t noticed it before on clocks but very interested to find it out.
June 23, 2009 at 11:38 am |
The clock is square!
September 19, 2009 at 11:12 am |
Here’s an alternative answer. At 11.50, as depicted on the clock, both hands should be closer to the next numbers, because the movements are *usually* continuous. But that’s not the case here.