Answers to January Mindbenders

Millennium Babies In theory, the first baby of 2000 was born just under 24 hours before the last baby of 1999. The first place to see the dawn of the new millennium was believed to be Tonga, a group of islands in the Pacific Ocean which is 13 hours ahead of GMT.  On the other hand, Samoa, a group of islands not far from Tonga, is on the other side of the International Date Line, so it is 11 hours behind GMT, and was the last place to see the arrival of this special year. So at the moment the first day of 2000 started in Tonga, it was the beginning of the last day of 1999 in Samoa, so the people there still had 24 hours to give birth to a 1999 baby. In practice, the time difference may be quite a bit less.  As Tonga and Samoa are both relatively small places, and not many other places share their time zones, there may not necessarily have been a baby born in the first hour of 2000 in Tonga, or the last hour of 1999 in Samoa.  This means that the first baby of 2000 may have turned out to be in Fiji or New Zealand, which are both 12 hours ahead of GMT, which would have reduced the time difference to within 23 hours. I do not currently have any information on what actually happened.  If you can get hold of such information, please let me know. Back

How Much Did They Spend? James spent £42, Rachel spent £126, Hannah spent £70 and William spent £105. Back

Matchstick Puzzle 1 Back

Matchstick Puzzle 2 Back

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