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

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?

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.

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?

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?

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.

Sept 03

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

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

Six Times Five

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

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

Repetitiously

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

The number 2.525252525252.... can be written as a fraction. What is the sum of the denominator and numerator?

One to Eight

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

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.

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?

Counting Factors

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Is there an efficient way to work out how many factors a large number has?

Always, Sometimes or Never? Number

Stage: 2 Challenge Level:

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

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?

Take One Example

Stage: 1 and 2

This article introduces the idea of generic proof for younger children and illustrates how one example can offer a proof of a general result through unpacking its underlying structure.

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?

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?

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?

See the Light

Stage: 2 and 3 Challenge Level:

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

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?

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.

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?

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?

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?

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?

Babylon Numbers

Stage: 3, 4 and 5 Challenge Level:

Can you make a hypothesis to explain these ancient numbers?

What Are Numbers?

Stage: 2, 3, 4 and 5

Ranging from kindergarten mathematics to the fringe of research this informal article paints the big picture of number in a non technical way suitable for primary teachers and older students.

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.

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?

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.

Water Lilies

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

There are some water lilies in a lake. The area that they cover doubles in size every day. After 17 days the whole lake is covered. How long did it take them to cover half the lake?

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.

N Is a Number

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

N people visit their friends staying N kilometres along the coast. Some walk along the cliff path at N km an hour, the rest go by car. How long is the road?

Lastly - Well

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

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

Arrange the Digits

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Can you arrange the digits 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 into three 3-digit numbers such that their total is close to 1500?

The Codabar Check

Stage: 3

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

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. . . .

X Marks the Spot

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

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" .

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?

Prime Magic

Stage: 2, 3 and 4 Challenge Level:

Place the numbers 1, 2, 3,..., 9 one on each square of a 3 by 3 grid so that all the rows and columns add up to a prime number. How many different solutions can you find?

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?

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.

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?

Triangular Triples

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

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

Small Change

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

In how many ways can a pound (value 100 pence) be changed into some combination of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 and 50 pence coins?

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.