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Dr. Shapiro's Puzzle of the Day

Today's Puzzle

Friday, September 4

Sometimes the titles of instrumental pieces of music can be kind of random. Sometimes they aren't.
Listen to the five clips at left. Can you match them with their titles?

  1. "So What"
  2. "Lollapalooza"
  3. "Shave and a Haircut"
  4. "Salt Peanuts"
  5. "Watermelon Man"

   


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Yesterday's Puzzle + Solution

You might be amazed to learn that no births or deaths were recorded in England from September 3, 1752 to September 13, 1752. This is all the more remarkable when you consider that the population of England at the time was in excess of 5 million people.

What was the reason for this historic anomaly?

Solution Not only were there no births or deaths, but nothing else happened on those days, either, because those days never happened! The day after Wednesday, September 2 was declared to be Thursday, September 14, and life went on.

Why, you ask? Prior to the calendar reform, every fourth year had been a leap year, no exceptions. But the actual solar year is a little shorter than 365.25 days, so the calendar wasn't keeping up with the changes of season. The Catholic Church was particularly concerned that Easter was being observed at the wrong time of year. In 1582, they decreed a solution (the Gregorian calendar) which was quickly adopted by Catholic countries; this entailed a tweak to the leap year rule and a one-time correction (by skipping days).

Many countries resisted the change, but gave in later because of the inconvenience of disagreeing with their neighbors on what date it was. England made the reform in 1752; Russia didn't do it until 1918, and Saudi Arabia officially adopted the Gregorian calendar in 2016! There are reports (some rather embellished) that when England skipped 11 days, people were distraught, believing their time had been stolen and their lives shortened by a Catholic plot.

By the way, I hid an Easter egg (heh) in yesterday's puzzle: the dateline under "Today's Puzzle" said Thursday, September 14.

Congratulations to yesterday's solvers Atticus, Anna K., Bridget, Riley, Leo S., Jessica, Jacob C., Summer, Charlie, Yana, Inca, Maddy, Kate, and Zachary S. Thanks to everybody who made a guess!

About This Site

Though he now teaches mathematics, Dr. (né Mr.) Shapiro's first job in a K–12 school was as a lunch monitor in Davis, CA. It was there that he originated the Puzzle of the Day, even rewarding correct answers with tickets in denominations like "15 points" (though without a clear idea of how he'd ultimately redeem these). Dr. Shapiro's favorite puzzle from this pre-professional era was "Tell me the location of the beehive on this campus."

Ten years later, Dr. Shapiro revived Puzzle of the Day at Proof School, writing each day's puzzle on a name tag. After 600 puzzles or so, he was just starting to feel normal about students reading his chest all the time when campus closed and the puzzle, like the rest of our lives, moved online. New puzzles are posted daily on school days.

Want to catch up on old PotDs? There's an archive currently containing puzzles from March to June 2020.