Daily puzzles/problems.

[MarkBastable]

It was the second of August. It was showing you the date, and it was upside down.

I apologise for the long pre-amble to this one. It concerns something that happened while I was on holiday in Noth Devon this summer.

The Guest House we stayed in was very nice, with solicitious hosts and comfortable rooms. Our room had a big double bed, two large sash windows with views of the 2 acre garden. It also had a en-suite bathroom, fitted wardrobes, bedside tables, a digital alarm clock, tiffany style lamps, colour TV etc... Everything you could want. Then there were the personal touches, like a chocolate on the pillow, a carafe of water by the bed, scented soaps and matching towels.

The first morning , Mrs P was in the shower and I was laid on the bed reading my book, waiting to go down for breakfast which we had ordered for 8:30. I glanced across to the clock on the opposite bedside table and saw it was 8:50 already. I shouted for the wife to hurry up and ran downstairs, hoping the porridge would still be warm. The landlady looked surprised to see me and said breakfast would not be ready for another 20 minutes!

Why not?

[prendrelemick]

nope.

[MarkBastable]

Works though.

[NikolaiI]

She took the 8:30 time as the time to start cooking?

[prendrelemick]

Mark: It would work, and you are thinking on the right lines, but still nope.



Nickoli: Nope. I was the one who had made a mistake.





.

[Silas Thorne]

Did you pull out the plug for the alarm clock the night before to plug in the other bedside lamp, and then your wife plugged it in again in the morning when she went to go in the shower?

[prendrelemick]

Nope.

It was a combination of items and circumstances that fooled me.

[Calidore]

Does England cover more than one time zone? Here in the U.S., it's not uncommon to forget to reset one's watch when traveling. Was it actually 7:50?

[prendrelemick]

No, we are all on British Summer Time over here.

The discription of the room is significant.

[NikolaiI]

Since you were laying on your back to read, when you looked at the clock, it was upside down and you saw 8:05 as 8:50. If you'd looked longer you might have seen the 8 was on the wrong side of the 50, but being so early, and perhaps not being completely used to digital clocks, you reacted before you could see your mistake.

[Scheherazade]

Is a mirror involved? Or a reflection on windows?

[prendrelemick]

NickolI:
I did just glance at the clock, where as a longer look would have stopped me making a mistake. But still not right yet.

Scher:
Yours is the closest guess yet. Think refraction, not reflection.

[MarkBastable]

You were seeing it through the glass of the lamp. Or the carafe of water. But either way, something that inverted the image.

[billl]

Let's imagine that the next smiley represents the clock

It is sitting next to the right side/wife's side of the bed and (this would be important) it is facing the foot of the bed.

Since Mick is in bed still, lying or sitting on the left side, somewhat near the headboard, he has a poor angle at the face of the clock.

...................

Mick _ <--bed--> _ clock

Well, if the clock (on the right) has a plastic domed cover for the clock face, then the curvature of the plastic dome would cause the clock-hands to bulge/swell up because of refraction. Of course, Mick is positioned higher than the clock, and so the swelling is more pronounced in regards to the second hand which is pointing upwards at the "2" on the clock dial than it is in regards to the hour hand which is near the "8". The refraction causes the minute hand to (seemingly) swell and pull over towards Mick, in the direction of the "10" on the clock-face. But Mick can't see the numbers, he just sees that the hand is (apparently) pointing where the "10" would be. (in the crazy green smiley, the second-hand should be aimed at the little eye, but it will be pulled into the bulging left side of the clock face cover.)

NOTE: This is a wild guess, and quite possibly inconsistent with real physics/optics.

[MarkBastable]

Well, if the clock (on the right) has a plastic domed cover for the clock face, then the curvature of the plastic dome would cause the clock-hands to bulge/swell up because of refraction. Of course, Mick is positioned higher than the clock, and so the swelling is more pronounced in regards to the second hand which is pointing upwards at the "2" on the clock dial than it is in regards to the hour hand which is near the "8". The refraction causes the minute hand to (seemingly) swell and pull over towards Mick, in the direction of the "10" on the clock-face. But Mick can't see the numbers, he just sees that the hand is (apparently) pointing where the "10" would be. (in the crazy green smiley, the second-hand should be aimed at the little eye, but it will be pulled into the bulging left side of the clock face cover.)

NOTE: This is a wild guess, and quite possibly inconsistent with real physics/optics.

Er....

It also had a en-suite bathroom, fitted wardrobes, bedside tables, a digital alarm clock...