Filter by: Content type: ALL Problems Articles Games Stage: All Stage 1&2 Stage 2&3 Stage 3&4 Stage 4&5 Challenge level:
The number 8888...88M9999...99 is divisible by 7 and it starts with the digit 8 repeated 50 times and ends with the digit 9 repeated 50 times. What is the value of the digit M?
I'm thinking of a number. When my number is divided by 5 the remainder is 4. When my number is divided by 3 the remainder is 2. Can you find my number?
A number N is divisible by 10, 90, 98 and 882 but it is NOT divisible by 50 or 270 or 686 or 1764. It is also known that N is a factor of 9261000. What is N?
How many numbers less than 1000 are NOT divisible by either: a) 2 or 5; or b) 2, 5 or 7?
What is the value of the digit A in the sum below: [3(230 + A)]^2 = 49280A
I put eggs into a basket in groups of 7 and noticed that I could easily have divided them into piles of 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 and always have one left over. How many eggs were in the basket?
The five digit number A679B, in base ten, is divisible by 72. What are the values of A and B?
Find the number which has 8 divisors, such that the product of the divisors is 331776.
Follow this recipe for sieving numbers and see what interesting patterns emerge.
How many integers between 1 and 1200 are NOT multiples of any of the numbers 2, 3 or 5?
Using the digits 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8, mulitply a two two digit numbers are multiplied to give a four digit number, so that the expression is correct. How many different solutions can you find?
Which pairs of cogs let the coloured tooth touch every tooth on the other cog? Which pairs do not let this happen? Why?
The sum of the first 'n' natural numbers is a 3 digit number in which all the digits are the same. How many numbers have been summed?
Can you find what the last two digits of the number $4^{1999}$ are?
6! = 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1. The highest power of 2 that divides exactly into 6! is 4 since (6!) / (2^4 ) = 45. What is the highest power of two that divides exactly into 100!?
What is the remainder when 2^2002 is divided by 7? What happens with different powers of 2?
Can you find any perfect numbers? Read this article to find out more...
Find the highest power of 11 that will divide into 1000! exactly.
When the number x 1 x x x is multiplied by 417 this gives the answer 9 x x x 0 5 7. Find the missing digits, each of which is represented by an "x" .
A three digit number abc is always divisible by 7 when 2a+3b+c is divisible by 7. Why?
A game that tests your understanding of remainders.
The number 12 = 2^2 × 3 has 6 factors. What is the smallest natural number with exactly 36 factors?
Do you know a quick way to check if a number is a multiple of two? How about three, four or six?
Find some triples of whole numbers a, b and c such that a^2 + b^2 + c^2 is a multiple of 4. Is it necessarily the case that a, b and c must all be even? If so, can you explain why?
Choose any 3 digits and make a 6 digit number by repeating the 3 digits in the same order (e.g. 594594). Explain why whatever digits you choose the number will always be divisible by 7, 11 and 13.
Imagine we have four bags containing a large number of 1s, 4s, 7s and 10s. What numbers can we make?
What is the smallest number of answers you need to reveal in order to work out the missing headers?
Helen made the conjecture that "every multiple of six has more factors than the two numbers either side of it". Is this conjecture true?
Look at three 'next door neighbours' amongst the counting numbers. Add them together. What do you notice?
Can you find a way to identify times tables after they have been shifted up?
What is the smallest number with exactly 14 divisors?
Four of these clues are needed to find the chosen number on this grid and four are true but do nothing to help in finding the number. Can you sort out the clues and find the number?
Complete the following expressions so that each one gives a four digit number as the product of two two digit numbers and uses the digits 1 to 8 once and only once.
Twice a week I go swimming and swim the same number of lengths of the pool each time. As I swim, I count the lengths I've done so far, and make it into a fraction of the whole number of lengths. . . .
This package contains a collection of problems from the NRICH website that could be suitable for students who have a good understanding of Factors and Multiples and who feel ready to take on some. . . .
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?
This article for teachers describes how number arrays can be a useful reprentation for many number concepts.
Norrie sees two lights flash at the same time, then one of them flashes every 4th second, and the other flashes every 5th second. How many times do they flash together during a whole minute?
Make a set of numbers that use all the digits from 1 to 9, once and once only. Add them up. The result is divisible by 9. Add each of the digits in the new number. What is their sum? Now try some. . . .
Three people chose this as a favourite problem. It is the sort of problem that needs thinking time - but once the connection is made it gives access to many similar ideas.
In this problem we are looking at sets of parallel sticks that cross each other. What is the least number of crossings you can make? And the greatest?
Becky created a number plumber which multiplies by 5 and subtracts 4. What do you notice about the numbers that it produces? Can you explain your findings?
Investigate the sum of the numbers on the top and bottom faces of a line of three dice. What do you notice?
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. . . .
List any 3 numbers. It is always possible to find a subset of adjacent numbers that add up to a multiple of 3. Can you explain why and prove it?
For this challenge, you'll need to play Got It! Can you explain the strategy for winning this game with any target?
A student in a maths class was trying to get some information from her teacher. She was given some clues and then the teacher ended by saying, "Well, how old are they?"
Explain why the arithmetic sequence 1, 14, 27, 40, ... contains many terms of the form 222...2 where only the digit 2 appears.
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...
Take any two digit number, for example 58. What do you have to do to reverse the order of the digits? Can you find a rule for reversing the order of digits for any two digit number?