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Resources tagged with Creating expressions/formulae similar to Magic Squares for Special Occasions:

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Always the Same

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

Arrange the numbers 1 to 16 into a 4 by 4 array. Choose a number. Cross out the numbers on the same row and column. Repeat this process. Add up you four numbers. Why do they always add up to 34?

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Crossed Ends

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Crosses can be drawn on number grids of various sizes. What do you notice when you add opposite ends?

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Good Work If You Can Get It

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

A job needs three men but in fact six people do it. When it is finished they are all paid the same. How much was paid in total, and much does each man get if the money is shared as Fred suggests?

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Boxed In

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

A box has faces with areas 3, 12 and 25 square centimetres. What is the volume of the box?

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Sum Equals Product

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

The sum of the numbers 4 and 1 [1/3] is the same as the product of 4 and 1 [1/3]; that is to say 4 + 1 [1/3] = 4 × 1 [1/3]. What other numbers have the sum equal to the product and can this be so for. . . .

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Top-heavy Pyramids

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

Use the numbers in the box below to make the base of a top-heavy pyramid whose top number is 200.

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Seven Up

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

The number 27 is special because it is three times the sum of its digits 27 = 3 (2 + 7). Find some two digit numbers that are SEVEN times the sum of their digits (seven-up numbers)?

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Chocolate Maths

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Pick the number of times a week that you eat chocolate. This number must be more than one but less than ten. Multiply this number by 2. Add 5 (for Sunday). Multiply by 50... Can you explain why it. . . .

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Number Pyramids

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Using the same starter numbers 2, 1, 4 and 6 can you get a larger total at the top of the pyramid? What is the largest total you can get?

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Partitioning Revisited

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

We can show that (x + 1)² = x² + 2x + 1 by considering the area of an (x + 1) by (x + 1) square. Show in a similar way that (x + 2)² = x² + 4x + 4

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Terminology

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

Triangle ABC is isosceles while triangle DEF is equilateral. Find one angle in terms of the other two.

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How Many Miles to Go?

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

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?

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Quick Times

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

32 x 38 = 30 x 40 + 2 x 8; 34 x 36 = 30 x 40 + 4 x 6; 56 x 54 = 50 x 60 + 6 x 4; 73 x 77 = 70 x 80 + 3 x 7 Verify and generalise if possible.

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How Big?

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

If the sides of the triangle in the diagram are 3, 4 and 5, what is the area of the shaded square?

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Cubes Within Cubes Revisited

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

Imagine starting with one yellow cube and covering it all over with a single layer of red cubes, and then covering that cube with a layer of blue cubes. How many red and blue cubes would you need?

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Magic Sums and Products

Stage: 3, 4 and 5

How to build your own magic squares.

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Christmas Chocolates

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

How could Penny, Tom and Matthew work out how many chocolates there are in different sized boxes?

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More Number Pyramids

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

Are there any patterns within the pyramid? Can you explain why you only get multiples of 4 at the top when you start with an integer in the bottom left hand corner?

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Pair Products

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

Choose four consecutive whole numbers. Multiply the first and last numbers together. Multiply the middle pair together. What do you notice?

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Back to Basics

Stage: 4 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

Find b where 3723(base 10) = 123(base b).

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Unit Interval

Stage: 4 and 5 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Take any two numbers between 0 and 1. Prove that the sum of the numbers is always less than one plus their product?

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AMGM

Stage: 4 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Choose any two numbers. Call them a and b. Work out the arithmetic mean and the geometric mean. Which is bigger? Repeat for other pairs of numbers. What do you notice?

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2-digit Square

Stage: 4 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

A 2-Digit number is squared. When this 2-digit number is reversed and squared, the difference between the squares is also a square. What is the 2-digit number?

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Janine's Conjecture

Stage: 4 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

Janine noticed, while studying some cube numbers, that if you take three consecutive whole numbers and multiply them together and then add the middle number of the three, you get the middle number. . . .

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Legs Eleven

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

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?

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Odd Squares

Stage: 4 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

The diagram illustrates the formula: 1 + 3 + 5 + ... + (2n - 1) = n² Use the diagram to show that any odd number is the difference of two squares.

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Fibs

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

The well known Fibonacci sequence is 1 ,1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21.... How many Fibonacci sequences can you find containing the number 196 as one of the terms?

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What's Possible?

Stage: 4 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

Many numbers can be expressed as the difference of two perfect squares. What do you notice about the numbers you CANNOT make?

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Mindreader

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

A little bit of algebra explains this 'magic'. Ask a friend to pick 3 consecutive numbers and to tell you a multiple of 3. Then ask them to add the four numbers and multiply by 67, and to tell you. . . .

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Lens Angle

Stage: 4 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

Find the missing angle between the two secants to the circle when the two angles at the centre subtended by the arcs created by the intersections of the secants and the circle are 50 and 120 degrees.

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Perfectly Square

Stage: 4 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

The sums of the squares of three related numbers is also a perfect square - can you explain why?

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' Tis Whole

Stage: 4 and 5 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

Take a few whole numbers away from a triangle number. If you know the mean of the remaining numbers can you find the triangle number and which numbers were removed?

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Hallway Borders

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

A hallway floor is tiled and each tile is one foot square. Given that the number of tiles around the perimeter is EXACTLY half the total number of tiles, find the possible dimensions of the hallway.

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Circle-in

Stage: 4 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

A circle is inscribed in a triangle which has side lengths of 8, 15 and 17 cm. What is the radius of the circle?

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Mediant

Stage: 4 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

If you take two tests and get a marks out of a maximum b in the first and c marks out of d in the second, does the mediant (a+c)/(b+d)lie between the results for the two tests separately.

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Sums of Pairs

Stage: 3 and 4 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

Jo has three numbers which she adds together in pairs. When she does this she has three different totals: 11, 17 and 22 What are the three numbers Jo had to start with?”

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Lower Bound

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

What would you get if you continued this sequence of fraction sums? 1/2 + 2/1 = 2/3 + 3/2 = 3/4 + 4/3 =

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Triangles Within Triangles

Stage: 4 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Can you find a rule which connects consecutive triangular numbers?

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Triangles Within Pentagons

Stage: 4 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

Show that all pentagonal numbers are one third of a triangular number.

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Warmsnug Double Glazing

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

How have "Warmsnug" arrived at the prices shown on their windows? Which window has been given an incorrect price?

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Pythagoras Proofs

Stage: 4 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

Can you make sense of these three proofs of Pythagoras' Theorem?

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How Much Can We Spend?

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

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?

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Painted Cube

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Imagine a large cube made from small red cubes being dropped into a pot of yellow paint. Can you predict how many of the faces of the smaller cubes will remain red?

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Reasonable Algebra

Stage: 4 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

Use algebra to reason why 16 and 32 are impossible to create as the sum of consecutive numbers.

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Magic Caterpillars

Stage: 4 and 5 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

Put numbers 1 to n on the edges and vertices of a graph so that the sum of the numbers on a vertex and on all arcs joined to that vertex is the same for all vertices.

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Plum Tree

Stage: 4 and 5 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Label a graph with the numbers 1 to n, one on each vertex, one on each arc. A Totally Magic graph is both Edge Magic and Vertex Magic.

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Balance Point

Stage: 4 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

Attach weights of 1, 2, 4, and 8 units to the four attachment points on the bar. Move the bar from side to side until you find a balance point. Is it possible to predict that position?

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Pinned Squares

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

The diagram shows a 5 by 5 geoboard with 25 pins set out in a square array. Squares are made by stretching rubber bands round specific pins. What is the total number of squares that can be made on a. . . .

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The Pillar of Chios

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

Semicircles are drawn on the sides of a rectangle ABCD. A circle passing through points ABCD carves out four crescent-shaped regions. Prove that the sum of the areas of the four crescents is equal to. . . .

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Chocolate 2004

Stage: 4 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

First of all, pick the number of times a week that you would like to eat chocolate. Multiply this number by 2...