As predicted by scientists late last week, Tuesday happened yesterday following the passing of Monday the previous day. Scientists had anticipated the day’s occurrence when it appeared in the same part of the week as it had done over 230 billion times since the Earth was formed some 4 billion years ago. ‘The power of modern supercomputing allows us to calculate the forthcoming order of days with much greater speed and accuracy than we were previously able to,’ said Dr David Hertz at the Astronomy Royale, on Tuesday.
The scientist elaborated for the layman on the physics rationale behind the mind-bogglingly correct prediction. ‘If we consider the week days from a geological perspective, the Earth's formation, which occurred about 4.5 billion years ago, leaves us with a calculation roughly amounting to 4.5 billion years × 365.25 days per year equaling a total of some 1.64 trillion days.’ Now comes the real scientific work. ‘Then what we do is divide this number by seven –which is the number of days in the week- to arrive at the final number of Tuesdays.’
The computer used at the Astronomy Royale is nicknamed ‘The calculator’ due to its uncanny ability to do difficult sums. I got a chance to test out the device myself and was amazed at the results. First I gave it my date of birth and asked it to calculate my age. Tricky, you might think. But it was correct to the exact date and time. Astounded, I moved onto calculations requiring what I figured to be otherworldly capabilities. Asking it how long it would take a rabbit to outrun a fox if both started ten metres behind the line thing at lunchtime(ish) in Sherwood Forest, it told me 17. At which point, I gave up. You cannot defeat modern AI.
Dr David Hertz insists that the Astronomy Royale’s awesome computing power will not be used to harm humanity. ‘The calculator has been programmed to disarm itself if asked to predict what time someone’s wife will get home. And anything to do with small boats, as in every other department of the state, is completely verboten.’ But how can we be sure that Tuesday will follow Monday next week? ‘That, I’m afraid,’ says Hertz, ‘is a complete unknown.’
Image: tigerlily713 - Pixabay
