Help! - maths

A forum I am trying to get one has a secret question I can not get past.
How many days in February 1803 PLUS February 1716, now add -21, and take the square root.

I am so stumped!
Can anyone help?

28+29-21=36
root(36)=6

:whs:

:wts:

The logic behind it is easy, it has to be a std 28 day February + a leap year to get a total that has a natural square root ie: 28 + 28 = 56 - 21 = 35, no natural sq rt
29 + 29 = 58 - 21 = 37, no natural sq rt

The nominated years are only to put you off track for confusions sake

(edit my bad maths) :-

Still no whole number natural sq root

question doesn't say anything a natural square root.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rwbuild

The logic behind it is easy, it has to be a std 28 day February + a leap year to get a total that has a natural square root ie: 28 + 28 = 56 - 21 = 55, no natural sq rt
29 + 29 = 58 - 21 = 57, no natural sq rt

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Actually its 35, and 37 and of course they have square roots, 6.08276253029822...... and 5.91607978309962. . . . . . .

Hi,
The years are not just to confuse, if the year is dividable by 4 it is a leap year. Not sure off hand when the modern calendar came about so could still be a trap. :D
Regards

1583 is the first full year of the Gregorian calendar. 1753 was the first full year in which the U.S. (then a British colony) began using the Gregorian calendar.

I'd say 6 as well. What are we missing, if at all?

And do you really want to be on a forum that cannot do maths as well as we can? :)

Regards from Perth

Derek

Quote:

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Originally Posted by derekcohen

And do you really want to be on a forum that cannot do maths as well as we can? :)

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Clinton hasn't told us yet if 6 is indeed the correct answer. In any case I assume the question is to determine if the answerer is a human and not a bot; not specifically meant to trick and trap. I'd prefer to be on a forum where the humans predominate. Many algorithms do maths quicker and more accurately than I do, even though I sometimes think in reverse polish. :rolleyes:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fuzzie

Many algorithms do maths quicker and more accurately than I do, even though I sometimes think in reverse polish. :rolleyes:

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out of interest, when did you buy your first HP calculator?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by A Duke

Hi,
The years are not just to confuse, if the year is dividable by 4 it is a leap year. Not sure off hand when the modern calendar came about so could still be a trap. :D
Regards

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so to be really tricky, the question should have been...

How many days in February 1800 PLUS February 1716, now add -21, and take the square root.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BobL

question doesn't say anything a natural square root.

its 35, and 37 and of course they have square roots, 6.08276253029822...... and 5.91607978309962. . . . . . .

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but neither are particularly useful as a bot trap. where do you truncate the number ?

SQRT(35) = 5.9, or 5.92, or 5.916, etc. to a machine 5.91608 is not the same as 5.916080

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ian

so to be really tricky, the question should have been...

How many days in February 1800 PLUS February 1716, now add -21, and take the square root.

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The answer is still 6.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ian

out of interest, when did you buy your first HP calculator?

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Never, I've always played with real computers. :)
My first introduction to reverse polish was in 1971 learning Fortran from McCraken's manual.
I think I wrote my own first usable RP calculator program in about 1981 on a Prime computer.