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#### Resources tagged with Mathematical reasoning & proof similar to Absurdity Again:

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### There are 184 results

Broad Topics > Using, Applying and Reasoning about Mathematics > Mathematical reasoning & proof

### Plus or Minus

##### Stage: 5 Challenge Level:

Make and prove a conjecture about the value of the product of the Fibonacci numbers $F_{n+1}F_{n-1}$.

### Common Divisor

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

Find the largest integer which divides every member of the following sequence: 1^5-1, 2^5-2, 3^5-3, ... n^5-n.

### Janine's Conjecture

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

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. . . .

### Telescoping Functions

##### Stage: 5

Take a complicated fraction with the product of five quartics top and bottom and reduce this to a whole number. This is a numerical example involving some clever algebra.

### Pythagoras Proofs

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

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

### Target Six

##### Stage: 5 Challenge Level:

Show that x = 1 is a solution of the equation x^(3/2) - 8x^(-3/2) = 7 and find all other solutions.

### Pair Squares

##### Stage: 5 Challenge Level:

The sum of any two of the numbers 2, 34 and 47 is a perfect square. Choose three square numbers and find sets of three integers with this property. Generalise to four integers.

### Always Perfect

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

Show that if you add 1 to the product of four consecutive numbers the answer is ALWAYS a perfect square.

### Square Mean

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

Is the mean of the squares of two numbers greater than, or less than, the square of their means?

### Polynomial Relations

##### Stage: 5 Challenge Level:

Given any two polynomials in a single variable it is always possible to eliminate the variable and obtain a formula showing the relationship between the two polynomials. Try this one.

### AMGM

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

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?

### Proof Sorter - Quadratic Equation

##### Stage: 4 and 5 Challenge Level:

This is an interactivity in which you have to sort the steps in the completion of the square into the correct order to prove the formula for the solutions of quadratic equations.

### Leonardo's Problem

##### Stage: 4 and 5 Challenge Level:

A, B & C own a half, a third and a sixth of a coin collection. Each grab some coins, return some, then share equally what they had put back, finishing with their own share. How rich are they?

### Geometric Parabola

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

Explore what happens when you draw graphs of quadratic equations with coefficients based on a geometric sequence.

### Mechanical Integration

##### Stage: 5 Challenge Level:

To find the integral of a polynomial, evaluate it at some special points and add multiples of these values.

##### Stage: 5 Challenge Level:

Find all positive integers a and b for which the two equations: x^2-ax+b = 0 and x^2-bx+a = 0 both have positive integer solutions.

### Composite Notions

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

A composite number is one that is neither prime nor 1. Show that 10201 is composite in any base.

### Unit Interval

##### Stage: 4 and 5 Challenge Level:

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

### More Number Pyramids

##### Stage: 3 and 4 Challenge Level:

When number pyramids have a sequence on the bottom layer, some interesting patterns emerge...

### Perfectly Square

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

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

### Number Rules - OK

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

Can you convince me of each of the following: If a square number is multiplied by a square number the product is ALWAYS a square number...

### Mediant

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

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.

### Little and Large

##### Stage: 5 Challenge Level:

A point moves around inside a rectangle. What are the least and the greatest values of the sum of the squares of the distances from the vertices?

### Look Before You Leap

##### Stage: 5 Challenge Level:

Relate these algebraic expressions to geometrical diagrams.

### Continued Fractions II

##### Stage: 5

In this article we show that every whole number can be written as a continued fraction of the form k/(1+k/(1+k/...)).

### Golden Eggs

##### Stage: 5 Challenge Level:

Find a connection between the shape of a special ellipse and an infinite string of nested square roots.

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

Find all real solutions of the equation (x^2-7x+11)^(x^2-11x+30) = 1.

### Never Prime

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

If a two digit number has its digits reversed and the smaller of the two numbers is subtracted from the larger, prove the difference can never be prime.

### Rational Roots

##### Stage: 5 Challenge Level:

Given that a, b and c are natural numbers show that if sqrt a+sqrt b is rational then it is a natural number. Extend this to 3 variables.

### How Many Solutions?

##### Stage: 5 Challenge Level:

Find all the solutions to the this equation.

### Euclid's Algorithm II

##### Stage: 5

We continue the discussion given in Euclid's Algorithm I, and here we shall discover when an equation of the form ax+by=c has no solutions, and when it has infinitely many solutions.

### The Triangle Game

##### Stage: 3 and 4 Challenge Level:

Can you discover whether this is a fair game?

### Impossible Sandwiches

##### Stage: 3, 4 and 5

In this 7-sandwich: 7 1 3 1 6 4 3 5 7 2 4 6 2 5 there are 7 numbers between the 7s, 6 between the 6s etc. The article shows which values of n can make n-sandwiches and which cannot.

### More Sums of Squares

##### Stage: 5

Tom writes about expressing numbers as the sums of three squares.

### Transitivity

##### Stage: 5

Suppose A always beats B and B always beats C, then would you expect A to beat C? Not always! What seems obvious is not always true. Results always need to be proved in mathematics.

### Proofs with Pictures

##### Stage: 5

Some diagrammatic 'proofs' of algebraic identities and inequalities.

### Modulus Arithmetic and a Solution to Dirisibly Yours

##### Stage: 5

Peter Zimmerman from Mill Hill County High School in Barnet, London gives a neat proof that: 5^(2n+1) + 11^(2n+1) + 17^(2n+1) is divisible by 33 for every non negative integer n.

### Euler's Squares

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

Euler found four whole numbers such that the sum of any two of the numbers is a perfect square. Three of the numbers that he found are a = 18530, b=65570, c=45986. Find the fourth number, x. You. . . .

##### Stage: 5 Short Challenge Level:

Can you work out where the blue-and-red brick roads end?

### Pareq Exists

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

Prove that, given any three parallel lines, an equilateral triangle always exists with one vertex on each of the three lines.

### Square Pair Circles

##### Stage: 5 Challenge Level:

Investigate the number of points with integer coordinates on circles with centres at the origin for which the square of the radius is a power of 5.

### Without Calculus

##### Stage: 5 Challenge Level:

Given that u>0 and v>0 find the smallest possible value of 1/u + 1/v given that u + v = 5 by different methods.

### Mouhefanggai

##### Stage: 4

Imagine two identical cylindrical pipes meeting at right angles and think about the shape of the space which belongs to both pipes. Early Chinese mathematicians call this shape the mouhefanggai.

### Sums of Squares and Sums of Cubes

##### Stage: 5

An account of methods for finding whether or not a number can be written as the sum of two or more squares or as the sum orf two or more cubes.

### A Computer Program to Find Magic Squares

##### Stage: 5

This follows up the 'magic Squares for Special Occasions' article which tells you you to create a 4by4 magicsquare with a special date on the top line using no negative numbers and no repeats.

### Recent Developments on S.P. Numbers

##### Stage: 5

Take a number, add its digits then multiply the digits together, then multiply these two results. If you get the same number it is an SP number.

### Whole Number Dynamics II

##### Stage: 4 and 5

This article extends the discussions in "Whole number dynamics I". Continuing the proof that, for all starting points, the Happy Number sequence goes into a loop or homes in on a fixed point.

### Whole Number Dynamics III

##### Stage: 4 and 5

In this third of five articles we prove that whatever whole number we start with for the Happy Number sequence we will always end up with some set of numbers being repeated over and over again.

### A Knight's Journey

##### Stage: 4 and 5

This article looks at knight's moves on a chess board and introduces you to the idea of vectors and vector addition.

### Whole Number Dynamics I

##### Stage: 4 and 5

The first of five articles concentrating on whole number dynamics, ideas of general dynamical systems are introduced and seen in concrete cases.