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Resources tagged with Properties of numbers similar to The Mathemagician's Seven Spells:

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Broad Topics > Numbers and the Number System > Properties of numbers

See the Light

Stage: 2 and 3 Challenge Level:

Work out how to light up the single light. What's the rule?

Got it Article

Stage: 2 and 3

This article gives you a few ideas for understanding the Got It! game and how you might find a winning strategy.

Unlocking the Case

Stage: 2 Challenge Level:

A case is found with a combination lock. There is one clue about the number needed to open the case. Can you find the number and open the case?

Which Numbers? (1)

Stage: 2 Challenge Level:

I am thinking of three sets of numbers less than 101. They are the red set, the green set and the blue set. Can you find all the numbers in the sets from these clues?

Table Patterns Go Wild!

Stage: 2 Challenge Level:

Nearly all of us have made table patterns on hundred squares, that is 10 by 10 grids. This problem looks at the patterns on differently sized square grids.

28 and It's Upward and Onward

Stage: 2 Challenge Level:

Can you find ways of joining cubes together so that 28 faces are visible?

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

If you take a three by three square on a 1-10 addition square and multiply the diagonally opposite numbers together, what is the difference between these products. Why?

Which Numbers? (2)

Stage: 2 Challenge Level:

I am thinking of three sets of numbers less than 101. Can you find all the numbers in each set from these clues?

Light the Lights Again

Stage: 2 Challenge Level:

Each light in this interactivity turns on according to a rule. What happens when you enter different numbers? Can you find the smallest number that lights up all four lights?

Guess the Dominoes for Two

Stage: Early years, 1 and 2 Challenge Level:

Guess the Dominoes for child and adult. Work out which domino your partner has chosen by asking good questions.

Three Neighbours

Stage: 2 Challenge Level:

Look at three 'next door neighbours' amongst the counting numbers. Add them together. What do you notice?

Escape from the Castle

Stage: 2 Challenge Level:

Skippy and Anna are locked in a room in a large castle. The key to that room, and all the other rooms, is a number. The numbers are locked away in a problem. Can you help them to get out?

Power Crazy

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

What can you say about the values of n that make $7^n + 3^n$ a multiple of 10? Are there other pairs of integers between 1 and 10 which have similar properties?

Four Coloured Lights

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Imagine a machine with four coloured lights which respond to different rules. Can you find the smallest possible number which will make all four colours light up?

Cinema Problem

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

A cinema has 100 seats. Show how it is possible to sell exactly 100 tickets and take exactly £100 if the prices are £10 for adults, 50p for pensioners and 10p for children.

Triangular Triples

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Show that 8778, 10296 and 13530 are three triangular numbers and that they form a Pythagorean triple.

Chameleons

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Whenever two chameleons of different colours meet they change colour to the third colour. Describe the shortest sequence of meetings in which all the chameleons change to green if you start with 12. . . .

Unit Fractions

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Consider the equation 1/a + 1/b + 1/c = 1 where a, b and c are natural numbers and 0 < a < b < c. Prove that there is only one set of values which satisfy this equation.

Cogs

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

A and B are two interlocking cogwheels having p teeth and q teeth respectively. One tooth on B is painted red. Find the values of p and q for which the red tooth on B contacts every gap on the. . . .

Even So

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

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?

Lastly - Well

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

What are the last two digits of 2^(2^2003)?

Slippy Numbers

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

The number 10112359550561797752808988764044943820224719 is called a 'slippy number' because, when the last digit 9 is moved to the front, the new number produced is the slippy number multiplied by 9.

Sort Them Out (2)

Stage: 2 Challenge Level:

Can you each work out the number on your card? What do you notice? How could you sort the cards?

Mini-max

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Consider all two digit numbers (10, 11, . . . ,99). In writing down all these numbers, which digits occur least often, and which occur most often ? What about three digit numbers, four digit numbers. . . .

Snail One Hundred

Stage: 1 and 2 Challenge Level:

This is a game in which your counters move in a spiral round the snail's shell. It is about understanding tens and units.

Magic Letters

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Charlie has made a Magic V. Can you use his example to make some more? And how about Magic Ls, Ns and Ws?

Summing Consecutive Numbers

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

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?

Sept 03

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

What is the last digit of the number 1 / 5^903 ?

Clever Carl

Stage: 2 and 3

What would you do if your teacher asked you add all the numbers from 1 to 100? Find out how Carl Gauss responded when he was asked to do just that.

Always, Sometimes or Never? Number

Stage: 2 Challenge Level:

Are these statements always true, sometimes true or never true?

Like Powers

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Investigate $1^n + 19^n + 20^n + 51^n + 57^n + 80^n + 82^n$ and $2^n + 12^n + 31^n + 40^n + 69^n + 71^n + 85^n$ for different values of n.

Two Much

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

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

Numbers Numbers Everywhere!

Stage: 1 and 2

Bernard Bagnall recommends some primary school problems which use numbers from the environment around us, from clocks to house numbers.

Writ Large

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Suppose you had to begin the never ending task of writing out the natural numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.... and so on. What would be the 1000th digit you would write down.

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Visitors to Earth from the distant planet of Zub-Zorna were amazed when they found out that when the digits in this multiplication were reversed, the answer was the same! Find a way to explain. . . .

Elevenses

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

How many pairs of numbers can you find that add up to a multiple of 11? Do you notice anything interesting about your results?

Alphabet Soup

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

This challenge is to make up YOUR OWN alphanumeric. Each letter represents a digit and where the same letter appears more than once it must represent the same digit each time.

Six Times Five

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

How many six digit numbers are there which DO NOT contain a 5?

Guess the Dominoes

Stage: 1, 2 and 3 Challenge Level:

This task depends on learners sharing reasoning, listening to opinions, reflecting and pulling ideas together.

The Codabar Check

Stage: 3

This article explains how credit card numbers are defined and the check digit serves to verify their accuracy.

Not a Polite Question

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

When asked how old she was, the teacher replied: My age in years is not prime but odd and when reversed and added to my age you have a perfect square...

Whole Numbers Only

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Can you work out how many of each kind of pencil this student bought?

The Patent Solution

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

A combination mechanism for a safe comprises thirty-two tumblers numbered from one to thirty-two in such a way that the numbers in each wheel total 132... Could you open the safe?

Special Numbers

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

My two digit number is special because adding the sum of its digits to the product of its digits gives me my original number. What could my number be?

Happy Octopus

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

This investigation is about happy numbers in the World of the Octopus where all numbers are written in base 8 ... Find all the fixed points and cycles for the happy number sequences in base 8.

Oh! Hidden Inside?

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

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

Helen's Conjecture

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

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

One or Both

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Problem one was solved by 70% of the pupils. Problem 2 was solved by 60% of them. Every pupil solved at least one of the problems. Nine pupils solved both problems. How many pupils took the exam?