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The slow wall clock
A wall clock with a -hour dial is set exactly right at the moment . From then on it runs steadily slow, losing exactly minutes of every real hour. Over the next days of real time, at how many moments does the dial show the correct time of day? (Count moments up to and including the end of day , and do not count the moment itself.)
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Hint
The dial is correct whenever the total time lost is a whole number of full dial turns.
Solution
- After real minutes the clock has lost minutes, because it loses minutes per .
- A -hour dial shows the right time exactly when the lost time is a multiple of minutes, so must be a multiple of minutes, which is days.
- The first days contain such periods, so the moments are at days , , , , and .
- The number of moments is .
Answer: