# What is the canonical age?

Every . in this text is a digit and every sentence is correct :

Captain was born in . . . .
He will be . . years old, a canonical age, in . . . .
In this text, There is only . different digits, each of them being used . times

Can you find the canonical age?

EDIT: "canonical" age here means "advanced" age. Sorry for that, wasn't aware this meaning was absent in english language!

NOTE: This was written in 1999
Source: Hervé Lehning – Tangente-Pour la Recherche may 2000 (page 61)

• "canonical" age is specifically 40yo and above. That's the age at which the church canon would allow a female housekeeper to live with a priest. A younger one would raise suspicion - and might face a higher risk of an embarassing pregnancy. I supposed the expression is merely used in Cathlic countries. Explanations in French: expressio.fr/expressions/un-age-canonique.php Feb 28 '18 at 15:56

## 2 Answers

My first answer:

Captain was born in 1 9 4 2
He will be 4 6 years old, a canonical age, in 1 9 8 8
In this text, There is only 6 different digits, each of them being used 2 times

This is not exactly a canonical age though...

EDIT :
And my BEST answer:

Captain was born in 1 9 1 3
He will be 9 3 years old, a canonical age, in 2 0 0 6
In this text, There is only 6 different digits, each of them being used 2 times

Now this is a canonical age!

• your first answer is also invalidate by the presence of "He will be .. years old" so it has to be later than 1999 Feb 28 '18 at 12:41
• @Keelhaul - I'm curious, how did you go about solving this? I knew the factors of 12 would determine the number of unique numbers and their frequency, and also that it would be a '19xx' year. After that, I didn't know how to proceed. What did you do? Trial and error, or some guided approach? Feb 28 '18 at 13:10
• Basically what you said, plus a bit of trial and error, suspecting the age would be in the 90ies there wasn't much room left. Feb 28 '18 at 13:13
• How is this a canonical age? Feb 28 '18 at 15:45
• Like OP said, "canonical age" means very old in french ("âge canonique"), but may have a different meaning in english. I'm inclined to think it's nothing more than a translation mistake, but being french myself I was lucky enough to understand what OP meant :) Feb 28 '18 at 16:01

I got this one.

Captain was born in 1 9 9 3
He will be 1 3 years old, a canonical age, in 2 0 0 6
In this text, There is only 6 different digits, each of them being used 2 times

How I achieve that?

At first, I assume that the Captain was born in 1 9 A B and will be on canonical age in 2 0 C D because the script was written in 1999.

We already have 4 different digits here, but writing 4 means we have 5 different digits. So there is a total of 6 different digits here, and each of them being used 2 times. (5 is impossible because the number of . is not divisible by 5).

So now we have 1 9 A B + E F = 2 0 C D, and we know that ABCDEF can be 0169XX. By some deduction, we can know that 0 can only replace C. And then, I was trying to put A = 9 and E = 1 the leaving BDF to be 6XX so X will be 3. Finally, the solution I arrive here is 1 9 9 3 + 1 3 = 2 0 0 6.

Nb. To be honest, I don't exactly know what is the definition of canonical age.

• Nice one, i'm sry for that misuse of "canonical", in french it means rather old. Feb 28 '18 at 12:38