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#### Resources tagged with Mathematical reasoning & proof similar to Reciprocals:

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### There are 183 results

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

### 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. . . .

### 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.

### 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?

### 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.

### 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.

##### 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.

### 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.

### Look Before You Leap

##### Stage: 5 Challenge Level:

Relate these algebraic expressions to geometrical diagrams.

### 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...

### 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?

### 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?

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

Four jewellers possessing respectively eight rubies, ten saphires, a hundred pearls and five diamonds, presented, each from his own stock, one apiece to the rest in token of regard; and they. . . .

### 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.

### 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.

### 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?

### Three Ways

##### Stage: 5 Challenge Level:

If x + y = -1 find the largest value of xy by coordinate geometry, by calculus and by algebra.

### Our Ages

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

I am exactly n times my daughter's age. In m years I shall be exactly (n-1) times her age. In m2 years I shall be exactly (n-2) times her age. After that I shall never again be an exact multiple of. . . .

### Exhaustion

##### Stage: 5 Challenge Level:

Find the positive integer solutions of the equation (1+1/a)(1+1/b)(1+1/c) = 2

### 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.

### 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.

### 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.

### 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.

### 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.

### How Many Solutions?

##### Stage: 5 Challenge Level:

Find all the solutions to the this equation.

### Interpolating Polynomials

##### Stage: 5 Challenge Level:

Given a set of points (x,y) with distinct x values, find a polynomial that goes through all of them, then prove some results about the existence and uniqueness of these polynomials.

### Pythagoras Proofs

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

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

### Geometric Parabola

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

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

### Yih or Luk Tsut K'i or Three Men's Morris

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

Some puzzles requiring no knowledge of knot theory, just a careful inspection of the patterns. A glimpse of the classification of knots and a little about prime knots, crossing numbers and. . . .

### Picturing Pythagorean Triples

##### Stage: 4 and 5

This article discusses how every Pythagorean triple (a, b, c) can be illustrated by a square and an L shape within another square. You are invited to find some triples for yourself.

### Try to Win

##### Stage: 5

Solve this famous unsolved problem and win a prize. Take a positive integer N. If even, divide by 2; if odd, multiply by 3 and add 1. Iterate. Prove that the sequence always goes to 4,2,1,4,2,1...

### Advent Calendar 2011 - Secondary

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

Advent Calendar 2011 - a mathematical activity for each day during the run-up to Christmas.

### Where Do We Get Our Feet Wet?

##### Stage: 5

Professor Korner has generously supported school mathematics for more than 30 years and has been a good friend to NRICH since it started.

### Dodgy Proofs

##### Stage: 5 Challenge Level:

These proofs are wrong. Can you see why?

### Plus or Minus

##### Stage: 5 Challenge Level:

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

### Magic Squares II

##### Stage: 4 and 5

An article which gives an account of some properties of magic squares.

### More Sums of Squares

##### Stage: 5

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

### 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.

### 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.

### 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.

### 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.

### Modulus Arithmetic and a Solution to Differences

##### Stage: 5

Peter Zimmerman, a Year 13 student at Mill Hill County High School in Barnet, London wrote this account of modulus arithmetic.

### The Great Weights Puzzle

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

You have twelve weights, one of which is different from the rest. Using just 3 weighings, can you identify which weight is the odd one out, and whether it is heavier or lighter than the rest?

### Whole Number Dynamics V

##### Stage: 4 and 5

The final of five articles which containe the proof of why the sequence introduced in article IV either reaches the fixed point 0 or the sequence enters a repeating cycle of four values.

### What Numbers Can We Make Now?

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

Imagine we have four bags containing numbers from a sequence. What numbers can we make now?

### Particularly General

##### Stage: 5 Challenge Level:

By proving these particular identities, prove the existence of general cases.

### Pythagorean Triples II

##### Stage: 3 and 4

This is the second article on right-angled triangles whose edge lengths are whole numbers.

### Proof of Pick's Theorem

##### Stage: 5 Challenge Level:

Follow the hints and prove Pick's Theorem.

### Kite in a Square

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

Can you make sense of the three methods to work out the area of the kite in the square?