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Mental juggling: Calculating the day of week
Posted by Thomas Klemm on 7 July 2009, 1:36 p.m.
My father has a quirk: When he meets someone new, he asks after the date of birth and
then after a few seconds of reflection, he says the corresponding day of the week.
I do not know exactly how he makes, but he knows many of the weekday data from memory.
This is used to calculate the difference to this particular day.
Though there are algorithms to do that with a computer or a programmable calculator I
was trying to find a way to do it in my mind. However mental arithmetic is not one of my skills.
Let me explain it first with an example: 22.06.1955
Day 22 -> 1 Month 6 -> 4 Year 55 -> 5 -- 10 -> 3 -> Wednesday
This one is easy: it's calculating the remainder after division by 7.
Example: 22 = 3 * 7 + 1Actually you don't have to divide by 7. You just need to know the closest multiple of 7 which is smaller or equal and then calculate the difference:
22 - 21 = 1
Here you don't have to calculate anything but keep a table in your mind:
Month 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Magic number 1 4 3 6 1 4 6 2 5 0 3 5As I can't remember such a table very well I rearranged it a little:
Month Magic numberFor Januray and March the mapping is identity, for October it is 0 which means it can be ignored. Then you can see that the 2nd and 3rd line both start with 6. In the 2nd line 1 4 from the first line is repeated but shifted by 1 whereas in the 3rd line 1 is added giving 2 5. Well, the last line: 10 is 0 and 1 added to 2 gives 3 and 5 is keept. But I'm sure you'll find a different way to memorize this table.1 2 3 1 4 3 4 5 6 6 1 4 7 8 9 6 2 5 10 11 12 0 3 5
How did I calculate this mapping?
Starting with March which is set to 3 either 31 or 30 is added depending on how many
days the previous month has:
month # days sum % 7 3 31 3 3 4 30 34 6 5 31 64 1 6 30 95 4 7 31 125 6 8 31 156 2 9 30 187 5 10 31 217 0 11 30 248 3 12 31 278 5 1 31 309 1 2 * 340 4(*) Since February is the last month in the list we don't have to take leap years into account here. This is the reason why we started with March.
Leap years make things complicated. Here again we have a mapping table:
0 : 00 06 17 23 28 34 45 51 56 62 73 79 84 90 101 107 1 : 01 07 12 18 29 35 40 46 57 63 68 74 85 91 96 102 2 : 02 13 19 24 30 41 47 52 58 69 75 80 86 97 103 108 3 : 03 08 14 25 31 36 42 53 59 64 70 81 87 92 98 109 4 : 09 15 20 26 37 43 48 54 65 71 76 82 93 99 104 110 5 : 04 10 21 27 32 38 49 55 60 66 77 83 88 94 105 111 6 : 05 11 16 22 33 39 44 50 61 67 72 78 89 95 100 106Search the year (- 1900) in the table and find the corresponding number in the leftmost column.
This is the easiest way I came up to calculate the number:
Example: 55 = 52 + 3 52 : 2 = 26 26 + 2 = 28 3 + 2 = 5As the calculations are carried out modulo 7 we can also subtract the difference to the closest multiple of 7 smaller than that number in steps 3 and 4.
Example: 46 = 44 + 2 44 : 2 = 22 22 - 1 = 21 2 - 1 = 1Shortcut for years that are a multiple of 7:
Example: 49 = 48 + 1 1 * 5 = 5Important note: You may have noticed that the mapping table for the months starts with March. Thus January and February belong to the year before the actual year. Therefore for these two months the year has to be reduced by 1 before any calculations.91 = 88 + 3 3 * 5 = 15 = 1 (7)
I know there are different ways to do that calculation. But it turned out that I can calculate n modulo 4 quiet fast while I have difficulties to divide a number by 4 if it's bigger than say 50. On the other I find no trouble to divide a number by 2. Probably it's all a question of training. However it seems I just don't do enough divisions by 12 to use Lewis Carroll's method:
Quote:
Add together the number of dozens, the overplus, and the number of 4s in the overplus.
The following table is used to map the resulting number to the day of the week:
0 Sunday 1 Monday 2 Tuesday 3 Wednesday 4 Thursday 5 Friday 6 Saturday
What we actually do is calculating the difference of the date to 28.02.1900 modulo 7. This interval is split into three parts from which modulo 7 can be found easier:
22.06.1955 22 = 1 (7) 0.06.1955 31 + 30 + 31 = 92 = 1 (7) 0.03.1955 55 + 13 = 68 = 5 (7) // 55 : 4 = 13 leap years 0.03.1900 28.02.1900 = 3 -- 10 = 3 (7)Since 28.02.1900 was a Wednesday the mapping table of the months starts with 3.
What remains unexplained are the two formulas to calculate the mapping of the year:
Let's assume y = 4n + r ; 0 <= r < 4 Then d = 365y + n = y + n (7) // since 365 = 1 (7) = 4n + r + n = r + 5n = r - 2n (7) 2n = 4n / 2d = r - 4n / 2 (7) // here we use that 2 | 4n
Last not least the case where the year is a multiple of 7:
y = 4n + r = 7k = 0 (7) r = -4n = 3n (7) // multiply both sides by 5 5r = 15n = n (7) d = y + n = 0 + 5r (7)
The method described here works only for dates from 01.03.1900 to 28.02.2100. However it could easily be adjusted.
6 July 1979
79 - 76 = 3 76 / 2 = 38 38 - 3 = 35 3 - 3 = 0July -> 6
0 + 6 + 6 = 12 = 5 (7)
or shortened
79 76 3 38 35 -3 0 6 -1 5 -> Friday
December 7th, 1941
41 - 40 = 1 40 / 2 = 20 20 + 1 = 21 1 + 1 = 2Dec -> 5
2 + 5 + 7 = 14 = 0 (7)
or shortened
41 40 1 20 21 1 2 5 0 -> Sunday
20.02.1964
63 - 60 = 3 3 * 5 = 15 = 1 (7)Feb -> 4
1 + 4 + 20 = 25 = 4 (7)
or shortened
63 60 3 15 1 4 -1 4 -> Thursday
How about a training program for your favorite HP calculator that displays a random date and asks you to enter the appropriate day of the week?
Edited: 24 Sept 2010, 3:21 p.m.