Filter by: Content type: ALL Problems Articles Games Stage: All Stage 1&2 Stage 2&3 Stage 3&4 Stage 4&5 Challenge level:
Show that for any triangle it is always possible to construct 3 touching circles with centres at the vertices. Is it possible to construct touching circles centred at the vertices of any polygon?
Make and prove a conjecture about the cyclic quadrilateral inscribed in a circle of radius r that has the maximum perimeter and the maximum area.
A point P is selected anywhere inside an equilateral triangle. What can you say about the sum of the perpendicular distances from P to the sides of the triangle? Can you prove your conjecture?
Two semicircle sit on the diameter of a semicircle centre O of twice their radius. Lines through O divide the perimeter into two parts. What can you say about the lengths of these two parts?
Take any parallelogram and draw squares on the sides of the parallelogram. What can you prove about the quadrilateral formed by joining the centres of these squares?
Find the vertices of a pentagon given the midpoints of its sides.
The points P, Q, R and S are the midpoints of the edges of a non-convex quadrilateral.What do you notice about the quadrilateral PQRS and its area?
What happens to the perimeter of triangle ABC as the two smaller circles change size and roll around inside the bigger circle?
This group tasks allows you to search for arithmetic progressions in the prime numbers. How many of the challenges will you discover for yourself?
Show that all pentagonal numbers are one third of a triangular number.
Can you find a rule which relates triangular numbers to square numbers?
Points D, E and F are on the the sides of triangle ABC. Circumcircles are drawn to the triangles ADE, BEF and CFD respectively. What do you notice about these three circumcircles?
Make a conjecture about the curved track taken by the complex roots of a quadratic equation and use complex conjugates to prove your conjecture.
The points P, Q, R and S are the midpoints of the edges of a convex quadrilateral. What do you notice about the quadrilateral PQRS as the convex quadrilateral changes?
Can you find a rule which connects consecutive triangular numbers?
Four rods of equal length are hinged at their endpoints to form a rhombus. The diagonals meet at X. One edge is fixed, the opposite edge is allowed to move in the plane. Describe the locus of. . . .
A and B are two fixed points on a circle and RS is a variable diamater. What is the locus of the intersection P of AR and BS?
Join in this ongoing research. Build squares on the sides of a triangle, join the outer vertices forming hexagons, build further rings of squares and quadrilaterals, investigate.
Change the squares in this diagram and spot the property that stays the same for the triangles. Explain...
What have Fibonacci numbers got to do with Pythagorean triples?
Steve has created two mappings. Can you figure out what they do? What questions do they prompt you to ask?
Here is a machine with four coloured lights. Can you make two lights switch on at once? Three lights? All four lights?
Have a go at creating these images based on circles. What do you notice about the areas of the different sections?
Can you find the values at the vertices when you know the values on the edges of these multiplication arithmagons?
Can you find some Pythagorean Triples where the two smaller numbers differ by 1?
How many different colours of paint would be needed to paint these pictures by numbers?
Drawing a triangle is not always as easy as you might think!
Alison has created two mappings. Can you figure out what they do? What questions do they prompt you to ask?
Find the maximum value of n to the power 1/n and prove that it is a maximum.
Explore the relationship between quadratic functions and their graphs.
Many numbers can be expressed as the difference of two perfect squares. What do you notice about the numbers you CANNOT make?
Yatir from Israel wrote this article on numbers that can be written as $ 2^n-n $ where n is a positive integer.
With red and blue beads on a circular wire; 'put a red bead between any two of the same colour and a blue between different colours then remove the original beads'. Keep repeating this. What happens?
Find out about Magic Squares in this article written for students. Why are they magic?!
For which values of n is the Fibonacci number fn even? Which Fibonnaci numbers are divisible by 3?
Make a conjecture about the sum of the squares of the odd positive integers. Can you prove it?
Generalise this inequality involving integrals.
Find the sum, f(n), of the first n terms of the sequence: 0, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3........p, p, p +1, p + 1,..... Prove that f(a + b) - f(a - b) = ab.
In 15 years' time my age will be the square of my age 15 years ago. Can you work out my age, and when I had other special birthdays?
If a number N is expressed in binary by using only 'ones,' what can you say about its square (in binary)?
A sequence of polynomials starts 0, 1 and each poly is given by combining the two polys in the sequence just before it. Investigate and prove results about the roots of the polys.
A point moves on a line segment. A function depends on the position of the point. Where do you expect the point to be for a minimum of this function to occur.
Yatir from Israel describes his method for summing a series of triangle numbers.
Beautiful mathematics. Two 18 year old students gave eight different proofs of one result then generalised it from the 3 by 1 case to the n by 1 case and proved the general result.
Investigate sequences given by $a_n = \frac{1+a_{n-1}}{a_{n-2}}$ for different choices of the first two terms. Make a conjecture about the behaviour of these sequences. Can you prove your conjecture?
Use the computer to model an epidemic. Try out public health policies to control the spread of the epidemic, to minimise the number of sick days and deaths.
A serious but easily readable discussion of proof in mathematics with some amusing stories and some interesting examples.
Take a number, add its digits then multiply the digits together, then multiply these two results. If you get the same number it is an SP number.
Problem solving is at the heart of the NRICH site. All the problems give learners opportunities to learn, develop or use mathematical concepts and skills. Read here for more information.
A introduction to how patterns can be deceiving, and what is and is not a proof.