A new brain teaser is leaving people baffled as they struggle to explain why certain pairs of numbers on a clock face always have the same thing in common – can you solve it?
This brain teaser is sure to leave you scratching your head.
We all use clocks every single day to tell the time, but do you know how a traditional analogue clock works? Most of us are used to looking at digital clocks these days on our phones or computers and even watch faces have gone digital with the introduction of smartwatches.
But if you’ve ever taken a close look at the face of an analogue clock, you might have noticed something strange about the numbers. A video going viral online asks people to work out why certain pairs of numbers on a clock always have the same thing in common, and it’s leaving people confused. Can you work it out?
The video, shared on X (formerly Twitter) by @gunsnrosesgirl3, shows a drawing of a clock face. The time on the clock reads 20 past 12, but you don’t even need to be able to tell the time to have a crack at solving this riddle. Instead, you need to look directly at the numbers across from each other.
In the clip, a person first circles the numbers 12 and 6, which are directly opposite one another, and points out that the difference between these two numbers is six.
Then, they go around the circle, connecting all of the other numbers that are directly across from each other – 1 and 7, 2 and 8, 3 and 9, and so forth – and highlight that the difference between all of these pairs is still six. Finally, the person writes at the bottom of the page: “Why six?”
Can you work out why the opposite numbers on a clock face always have a difference of six? It might seem like a spooky coincidence, but there’s actually a very simple explanation. Give yourself some time to mull it over, and then scroll down further for the answer.
Answer
There’s no magic at play here – the numbers all equal six when subtracted simply because six is half of the total number of segments on a clock face. As one commenter pointed out, the answer will always be half of the total, no matter how many total segments your circle has.
They wrote: “I will try to explain it easily. It’s because it’s half. If the dial was 100 numbers, then everything 180 degrees or directly across would be 50 apart.”
If you imagine a clock face split into 100 segments, then 100 and 50 would be across from each other, just like 12 and 6. Then, moving in the same way as the video, you would find the pairs include 1 and 51, 2 and 52, 3 and 53, making the difference between each pair always equal 50.
Other commenters also shared the answer in similar ways. Someone said: “Because half of 12 is 6, and when you add one to both numbers as you go around the clock, the answer remains six. Not a mystery.”
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