From a reader:
My seventh grade boy and I were going through our Friendly Defender Catholic apologetics cards yesterday. In trying to appreciate and prove John 21:25 (and why the Sacred Scriptures are really only the highlights of Jesus’ life and not The Comprehensive Picture), it struck me that we should figure out how many seconds Jesus lived once He was born–because boys “get” seconds. A ramped up math lesson was instantly included!! (I could have added 9 more months for gestation but didn’t for this exercise.)
Apparently Julius Caesar introduced leap years and he died in 44BC, so that’s even more perfect seconds!
That’s a lovely great big number for a boy. He might like this puzzle, and the fact that a woefully innumerate old girl stumbled on the answer.
St. Maximilian Kolbe had the number 16670 tattooed on his arm at Auschwitz. Just a dehumanising number. Or was it? God knew something the camp guards didn’t know. What is the special significance of the number 16670 in relation to St. Maximilian Kolbe?
Calculators allowed. If nobody gets the right answer today I will post it after 6pm GMT
Specially for the boy who worked out Jesus’s age in seconds…
Work out the date when St. Maximilian Kolbe was 16670 days old.
The maths:
He was born on 8th January 1894. On his 45th birthday he reached 16435 days, ie. 365 x 45 = 16425, plus 10 days for leap years.
http://kalender-365.de/leap-years.php
This takes us to 8th January 1939 with 235 days to go. He reached 16670 days on 31st August 1939. The German invasion of Poland was the very next day.