"And now to the next item on the agenda," said the minister for futile exorbitance. "The Museum of 21st Century History. You will find the plan on page 1,723 of the architect's proposal."
There was a rustling of pages and several loud thumps as committee members located the plan. [See figure A]
"The circles are the exhibition rooms," the minister explained. "The lines are connecting corridors. There will be one room for each of the years from 2001 to 2008."
"What about the year 2000?" asked the permanent secretary for pointless prevarication.
"Technically, that was the last year of the 20th century, not the first year of the 21st. Not that anyone took any notice."
"Which years go in which rooms?" asked the head of the department of mission creep.
"The architect has stipulated that to avoid spurious connotations of spatio-temporal continuity, no two consecutive years can be in adjacent rooms—that is, connected by a single corridor," said the minister. "For instance, if the left-hand room is 2004, then neither 2003 nor 2005 can go in the three rooms immediately to its right."
"I see," said the undersecretary for ineffectual initiatives." So the arrangement of the rooms is—?"
"I don't know," said the minister. "The architect didn't say."
How can the rooms be arranged?
Prospect invites you to solve the puzzle and send us the solution. Correct answers will be enteredinto a draw. The winner will receive a copy of King of Infinite Space: Donald Coxeter, the Man Who Saved Geometry by Siobhan Roberts (Profile, £14.99).
Send answers to info@prospect-magazine.co.uk by 15th February. The winner will be announced in our March issue.
