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What is the smallest number with exactly 14 divisors?
Do you know a quick way to check if a number is a multiple of two? How about three, four or six?
What is the largest number which, when divided into 1905, 2587, 3951, 7020 and 8725 in turn, leaves the same remainder each time?
Mathematicians are always looking for efficient methods for solving problems. How efficient can you be?
How many pairs of numbers can you find that add up to a multiple of 11? Do you notice anything interesting about your results?
Play the divisibility game to create numbers in which the first two digits make a number divisible by 2, the first three digits make a number divisible by 3...
Can you guarantee that, for any three numbers you choose, the product of their differences will always be an even number?
Some 4 digit numbers can be written as the product of a 3 digit number and a 2 digit number using the digits 1 to 9 each once and only once. The number 4396 can be written as just such a product. Can. . . .
Powers of numbers behave in surprising ways. Take a look at some of these and try to explain why they are true.
Caroline and James pick sets of five numbers. Charlie chooses three of them that add together to make a multiple of three. Can they stop him?
Ben passed a third of his counters to Jack, Jack passed a quarter of his counters to Emma and Emma passed a fifth of her counters to Ben. After this they all had the same number of counters.
Investigate how you can work out what day of the week your birthday will be on next year, and the year after...
The number 2.525252525252.... can be written as a fraction. What is the sum of the denominator and numerator?
Take any four digit number. Move the first digit to the 'back of the queue' and move the rest along. Now add your two numbers. What properties do your answers always have?
The clues for this Sudoku are the product of the numbers in adjacent squares.
Find a cuboid (with edges of integer values) that has a surface area of exactly 100 square units. Is there more than one? Can you find them all?
Many numbers can be expressed as the sum of two or more consecutive integers. For example, 15=7+8 and 10=1+2+3+4. Can you say which numbers can be expressed in this way?
Can you arrange these numbers into 7 subsets, each of three numbers, so that when the numbers in each are added together, they make seven consecutive numbers?
A game for 2 or more people, based on the traditional card game Rummy. Players aim to make two `tricks', where each trick has to consist of a picture of a shape, a name that describes that shape, and. . . .
Can you find an efficient method to work out how many handshakes there would be if hundreds of people met?
A hexagon, with sides alternately a and b units in length, is inscribed in a circle. How big is the radius of the circle?
Why does this fold create an angle of sixty degrees?
A car's milometer reads 4631 miles and the trip meter has 173.3 on it. How many more miles must the car travel before the two numbers contain the same digits in the same order?
How many solutions can you find to this sum? Each of the different letters stands for a different number.
A decorator can buy pink paint from two manufacturers. What is the least number he would need of each type in order to produce different shades of pink.
What does this number mean ? Which order of 1, 2, 3 and 4 makes the highest value ? Which makes the lowest ?
Five children went into the sweet shop after school. There were choco bars, chews, mini eggs and lollypops, all costing under 50p. Suggest a way in which Nathan could spend all his money.
A country has decided to have just two different coins, 3z and 5z coins. Which totals can be made? Is there a largest total that cannot be made? How do you know?
Can you find six numbers to go in the Daisy from which you can make all the numbers from 1 to a number bigger than 25?
My two digit number is special because adding the sum of its digits to the product of its digits gives me my original number. What could my number be?
Is it always possible to combine two paints made up in the ratios 1:x and 1:y and turn them into paint made up in the ratio a:b ? Can you find an efficent way of doing this?
Take any prime number greater than 3 , square it and subtract one. Working on the building blocks will help you to explain what is special about your results.
Different combinations of the weights available allow you to make different totals. Which totals can you make?
There are four children in a family, two girls, Kate and Sally, and two boys, Tom and Ben. How old are the children?
The area of a square inscribed in a circle with a unit radius is, satisfyingly, 2. What is the area of a regular hexagon inscribed in a circle with a unit radius?
A 2 by 3 rectangle contains 8 squares and a 3 by 4 rectangle contains 20 squares. What size rectangle(s) contain(s) exactly 100 squares? Can you find them all?
Square numbers can be represented as the sum of consecutive odd numbers. What is the sum of 1 + 3 + ..... + 149 + 151 + 153?
All CD Heaven stores were given the same number of a popular CD to sell for £24. In their two week sale each store reduces the price of the CD by 25% ... How many CDs did the store sell at. . . .
In a three-dimensional version of noughts and crosses, how many winning lines can you make?
If you have only 40 metres of fencing available, what is the maximum area of land you can fence off?
Each of the following shapes is made from arcs of a circle of radius r. What is the perimeter of a shape with 3, 4, 5 and n "nodes".
Imagine you have a large supply of 3kg and 8kg weights. How many of each weight would you need for the average (mean) of the weights to be 6kg? What other averages could you have?
Start with two numbers. This is the start of a sequence. The next number is the average of the last two numbers. Continue the sequence. What will happen if you carry on for ever?
Imagine a large cube made from small red cubes being dropped into a pot of yellow paint. How many of the small cubes will have yellow paint on their faces?
What is the greatest volume you can get for a rectangular (cuboid) parcel if the maximum combined length and girth are 2 metres?
If you are given the mean, median and mode of five positive whole numbers, can you find the numbers?
Can you maximise the area available to a grazing goat?
How many different symmetrical shapes can you make by shading triangles or squares?
A spider is sitting in the middle of one of the smallest walls in a room and a fly is resting beside the window. What is the shortest distance the spider would have to crawl to catch the fly?
Here are four tiles. They can be arranged in a 2 by 2 square so that this large square has a green edge. If the tiles are moved around, we can make a 2 by 2 square with a blue edge... Now try. . . .