Nov 11, 2009

B'day twins problem

Sheila and He-Man are twins; Sheila is the OLDER twin. Assume they were born immediately after each other, an infinitesimally small - but nonzero - amount of time apart. During one year in the course of their lives, Sheila celebrates her birthday two days AFTER He-Man does. How is this possible?

Bonus: What is the maximum amount of time by which Sheila and He-Man can be apart in their birthday celebrations during the same year? 


Note: For both Sheila and He-Man, these birthday celebrations happen on the actual birthday date -- it cannot be a celebration that occurs at a date earlier or later than the actual birthday date for whatever reasons of convenience. Also, the solution has nothing to do with the theory of relativity or any other over complicated nonsense like that.

6 comments:

  1. hehe..let us assume that Sheila was born on march first on the eastern time zone just beside the date line on march first. before 1 am. so the date of her birth is 01/03 say 0030 hrs..now lt us assume that they were born in a boat crossing the date line. a he-man was born just after the datelie was crossed. As eastern time is 1 day ahead of western time, and he-man was born in the western time zone, his birthday is on february 28th , say 0031 hrs. so they already ave a gap of 1 day between them. sheila being older by birth but heman older by date. now, when a leap year comes, feb 29th cmes in middle and they have 2 days between their birthdays. I wonder which idiot will have his wife in a boat crossing date line while giving pregnant to twins.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's easier than that. If one twin was born just before midnight on Feb 28th, and the other was born just after midnight on March 1st, then on leap years their birthdays will be two days apart.

    ReplyDelete
  3. yeah but then Sheila wud have been born before so she celebrates her birthday 2 days "before" He-Man.. Rockers is right there..

    ReplyDelete
  4. Tanishq GoyalOctober 08, 2010

    I also agree with Rockers!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I also agree wth rockers.
    Bt i thnk tht jules is also right...

    ReplyDelete
  6. AnonymousJune 14, 2012

    lol even though they were born the same day they can still both celebrate their birthdays on the same day or on completely different days.

    ReplyDelete

Bookmark and Share