Tim Rowland takes the reader through divisibility tests and how they work. An article to read with pencil and paper to hand.

Data is sent in chunks of two different sizes - a yellow chunk has 5 characters and a blue chunk has 9 characters. A data slot of size 31 cannot be exactly filled with a combination of yellow and. . . .

Consider numbers of the form un = 1! + 2! + 3! +...+n!. How many such numbers are perfect squares?

Make a line of green and a line of yellow rods so that the lines differ in length by one (a white rod)

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 how many ways can the number 1 000 000 be expressed as the product of three positive integers?

Given any 3 digit number you can use the given digits and name another number which is divisible by 37 (e.g. given 628 you say 628371 is divisible by 37 because you know that 6+3 = 2+7 = 8+1 = 9). . . .

You are given the Lowest Common Multiples of sets of digits. Find the digits and then solve the Sudoku.

Given the products of diagonally opposite cells - can you complete this Sudoku?

How many zeros are there at the end of the number which is the product of first hundred positive integers?

115^2 = (11 x 12)x 25, that is 13225 895^2 = (89 x 90)x 25, that is 801025 Can you explain what is happening and generalise?

Each letter represents a different positive digit AHHAAH / JOKE = HA What are the values of each of the letters?

Explore the factors of the numbers which are written as 10101 in different number bases. Prove that the numbers 10201, 11011 and 10101 are composite in any base.

What is the remainder when 2^2002 is divided by 7? What happens with different powers of 2?

The five digit number A679B, in base ten, is divisible by 72. What are the values of A and B?

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?

Prove that if a^2+b^2 is a multiple of 3 then both a and b are multiples of 3.

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?

Take any pair of numbers, say 9 and 14. Take the larger number, fourteen, and count up in 14s. Then divide each of those values by the 9, and look at the remainders.

Helen made the conjecture that "every multiple of six has more factors than the two numbers either side of it". Is this conjecture true?

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?

Find the highest power of 11 that will divide into 1000! exactly.

Use the digits 1, 3, 4, 5 and one more digit and, with these digits, make the largest possible 5-digit number which is divisible by 12.

Find the number which has 8 divisors, such that the product of the divisors is 331776.

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?

The nth term of a sequence is given by the formula n^3 + 11n . Find the first four terms of the sequence given by this formula and the first term of the sequence which is bigger than one million. . . .

A collection of interactive resources to support work on Factors and Multiples

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?

The number 12 = 2^2 × 3 has 6 factors. What is the smallest natural number with exactly 36 factors?

For this challenge, you'll need to play Got It! Can you explain the strategy for winning this game with any target?

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?

How many integers between 1 and 1200 are NOT multiples of any of the numbers 2, 3 or 5?

A game for two people, or play online. Given a target number,say 23, and a range of numbers to choose from, say 1-4, players take it in turns to add to the running total to hit their target.

Explain why the arithmetic sequence 1, 14, 27, 40, ... contains many terms of the form 222...2 where only the digit 2 appears.

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?

Can you guarantee that from any group of 5 numbers it is always possible to choose three numbers that will add up to a multiple of 3?

Factorial one hundred (written 100!) has 24 noughts when written in full and that 1000! has 249 noughts? Convince yourself that the above is true. Perhaps your methodology will help you find the. . . .

The puzzle can be solved by finding the values of the unknown digits (all indicated by asterisks) in the squares of the $9\times9$ grid.

Use the information about the lowest common multiples of the unknown numbers to help you solve this Sudoku.

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. . . .

In this activity, the computer chooses a times table and shifts it. Can you work out the table and the shift each time?

Find the ten-digit number in which the first two digits make a number divisible by 2, the first three digits make a number divisible by 3, the first four digits make a number divisible by 4...

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!?

The clues for this Sudoku are the product of the numbers in adjacent squares.

What is the value of the digit A in the sum below: [3(230 + A)]^2 = 49280A

Find the smallest positive integer N such that N/2 is a perfect cube, N/3 is a perfect fifth power and N/5 is a perfect seventh power.

How many numbers less than 1000 are NOT divisible by either: a) 2 or 5; or b) 2, 5 or 7?

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?