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 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?
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?
Can you find what the last two digits of the number $4^{1999}$ are?
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?
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 find any perfect numbers? Read this article to find out more...
Imagine we have four bags containing numbers from a sequence. What numbers can we make now?
Which pairs of cogs let the coloured tooth touch every tooth on the other cog? Which pairs do not let this happen? Why?
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. . . .
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. . . .
Prove that if a^2+b^2 is a multiple of 3 then both a and b are multiples of 3.
How many zeros are there at the end of the number which is the product of first hundred positive integers?
How many integers between 1 and 1200 are NOT multiples of any of the numbers 2, 3 or 5?
Find the highest power of 11 that will divide into 1000! exactly.
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?
The five digit number A679B, in base ten, is divisible by 72. What are the values of A and B?
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 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
Find the number which has 8 divisors, such that the product of the divisors is 331776.
Imagine we have four bags containing a large number of 1s, 4s, 7s and 10s. What numbers can we make?
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?
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. . . .
Follow this recipe for sieving numbers and see what interesting patterns emerge.
For this challenge, you'll need to play Got It! Can you explain the strategy for winning this game with any target?
Make a line of green and a line of yellow rods so that the lines differ in length by one (a white rod)
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?
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.
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.
The number 12 = 2^2 × 3 has 6 factors. What is the smallest natural number with exactly 36 factors?
A three digit number abc is always divisible by 7 when 2a+3b+c is divisible by 7. Why?
Can you find a relationship between the number of dots on the circle and the number of steps that will ensure that all points are hit?
What is the smallest number of answers you need to reveal in order to work out the missing headers?
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?
What is the smallest number with exactly 14 divisors?
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. . . .
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?
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.
In how many ways can the number 1 000 000 be expressed as the product of three positive integers?
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.
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?"
Find some examples of pairs of numbers such that their sum is a factor of their product. eg. 4 + 12 = 16 and 4 × 12 = 48 and 16 is a factor of 48.
Explain why the arithmetic sequence 1, 14, 27, 40, ... contains many terms of the form 222...2 where only the digit 2 appears.
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. . . .
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!?
A game that tests your understanding of remainders.
What is the remainder when 2^2002 is divided by 7? What happens with different powers of 2?
This article takes the reader through divisibility tests and how they work. An article to read with pencil and paper to hand.