List

Visualising - Upper Secondary

Pumpkin Patch
game

Pumpkin patch

Age
5 to 18
A game for two players based on a game from the Somali people of Africa. The first player to pick all the other's 'pumpkins' is the winner.
Seega
game

Seega

Age
5 to 18
An ancient game for two from Egypt. You'll need twelve distinctive 'stones' each to play. You could chalk out the board on the ground - do ask permission first.
Alquerque
game

Alquerque

Age
5 to 18
This game for two, was played in ancient Egypt as far back as 1400 BC. The game was taken by the Moors to Spain, where it is mentioned in 13th century manuscripts, and the Spanish name Alquerque derives from the Arabic El- quirkat. Watch out for being 'huffed'.
Introducing NRICH TWILGO
interactivity

Introducing NRICH TWILGO

Age
5 to 18
Challenge level
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We're excited about this new program for drawing beautiful mathematical designs. Can you work out how we made our first few pictures and, even better, share your most elegant solutions with us?
Clocking off
problem

Clocking off

Age
7 to 16
Challenge level
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I found these clocks in the Arts Centre at the University of Warwick intriguing - do they really need four clocks and what times would be ambiguous with only two or three of them?
Fruity Totals
problem

Fruity totals

Age
7 to 16
Challenge level
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In this interactivity each fruit has a hidden value. Can you deduce what each one is worth?

Air Nets
problem

Air nets

Age
7 to 18
Challenge level
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Can you visualise whether these nets fold up into 3D shapes? Watch the videos each time to see if you were correct.
Prime Magic
problem

Prime magic

Age
7 to 16
Challenge level
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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?
Like a Circle in a Spiral
problem

Like a circle in a spiral

Age
7 to 16
Challenge level
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A cheap and simple toy with lots of mathematics. Can you interpret the images that are produced? Can you predict the pattern that will be produced using different wheels?
Cubic Conundrum
problem

Cubic conundrum

Age
7 to 16
Challenge level
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Which of the following cubes can be made from these nets?
Charting success
problem

Charting success

Age
11 to 16
Challenge level
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Can you make sense of the charts and diagrams that are created and used by sports competitors, trainers and statisticians?
Funny Factorisation
problem

Funny factorisation

Age
11 to 16
Challenge level
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Using the digits 1 to 9, the number 4396 can be written as the product of two numbers. Can you find the factors?

Who's who?
problem

Who's who?

Age
11 to 16
Challenge level
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Can you solve the clues to find out who's who on the friendship graph?

Charting more success
problem

Charting more success

Age
11 to 16
Challenge level
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Can you make sense of the charts and diagrams that are created and used by sports competitors, trainers and statisticians?
Nine Colours
problem

Nine colours

Age
11 to 16
Challenge level
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Can you use small coloured cubes to make a 3 by 3 by 3 cube so that each face of the bigger cube contains one of each colour?

What is the question?
problem

What is the question?

Age
11 to 16
Challenge level
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These pictures and answers leave the viewer with the problem "What is the Question". Can you give the question and how the answer follows?
What's it worth?
problem

What's it worth?

Age
11 to 16
Challenge level
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There are lots of different methods to find out what the shapes are worth - how many can you find?

The Bridges of Konigsberg
problem

The bridges of Konigsberg

Age
11 to 18
Challenge level
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Investigate how networks can be used to solve a problem for the 18th Century inhabitants of Konigsberg.

11x11 square
problem

11x11 square

Age
11 to 16
Challenge level
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Here's a neat trick you can do with an 11 by 11 square...
Sliding Puzzle
game

Sliding puzzle

Age
11 to 16
Challenge level
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The aim of the game is to slide the green square from the top right hand corner to the bottom left hand corner in the least number of moves.
Spots and Measles
problem

Spots and measles

Age
11 to 16
Challenge level
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99% of people who have measles have spots. Ben has spots. Do you think he has measles?

Vector Racer
game
Favourite

Vector racer

Age
11 to 16
Challenge level
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The classic vector racing game.

LOGO Challenge - Triangles-Squares-Stars
problem

LOGO challenge - triangles-squares-stars

Age
11 to 16
Challenge level
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Can you recreate these designs? What are the basic units? What movement is required between each unit? Some elegant use of procedures will help - variables not essential.

Multiple Surprises
problem

Multiple surprises

Age
11 to 16
Challenge level
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Sequences of multiples keep cropping up...

Ding Dong Bell
article

Ding dong bell

The reader is invited to investigate changes (or permutations) in the ringing of church bells, illustrated by braid diagrams showing the order in which the bells are rung.
Take Three From Five
problem

Take three from five

Age
11 to 16
Challenge level
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Caroline and James pick sets of five numbers. Charlie tries to find three that add together to make a multiple of three. Can they stop him?

Placeholder: several colourful numbers
problem

Triangles in the middle

Age
11 to 18
Challenge level
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This task depends on groups working collaboratively, discussing and reasoning to agree a final product.
Pythagoras Proofs
problem

Pythagoras proofs

Age
11 to 16
Challenge level
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Can you make sense of these three proofs of Pythagoras' Theorem?

Charlie's delightful machine
problem

Charlie's delightful machine

Age
11 to 16
Challenge level
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Here is a machine with four coloured lights. Can you develop a strategy to work out the rules controlling each light?

Yih or Luk tsut k'i or Three Men's Morris
game

Yih or Luk tsut k'i or Three Men's Morris

Age
11 to 18
Challenge level
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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 knot arithmetic.

Triangle in a Trapezium
problem

Triangle in a trapezium

Age
11 to 16
Challenge level
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Can you find and prove the relationship between the area of a trapezium and the area of a triangle constructed within it?

Shaping the universe I - planet Earth
article

Shaping the universe I - planet Earth

This article explores ths history of theories about the shape of our planet. It is the first in a series of articles looking at the significance of geometric shapes in the history of astronomy.

Searching for mean(ing)
problem

Searching for mean(ing)

Age
11 to 16
Challenge level
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If you have a large supply of 3kg and 8kg weights, how many of each would you need for the average (mean) of the weights to be 6kg?

Sprouts
game

Sprouts

Age
11 to 16
Challenge level
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A game for 2 people. Take turns joining two dots, until your opponent is unable to move.
Cuboid challenge
problem

Cuboid challenge

Age
11 to 16
Challenge level
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What's the largest volume of box you can make from a square of paper?

problem

Marbles in a box

Age
11 to 16
Challenge level
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How many winning lines can you make in a three-dimensional version of noughts and crosses?

Instant Insanity
problem

Instant insanity

Age
11 to 18
Challenge level
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Given the nets of 4 cubes with the faces coloured in 4 colours, build a tower so that on each vertical wall no colour is repeated, that is all 4 colours appear.

Hamiltonian Cube
problem

Hamiltonian cube

Age
11 to 16
Challenge level
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Weekly Problem 36 - 2007
Find the length along the shortest path passing through certain points on the cube.
Wipeout
problem

Wipeout

Age
11 to 16
Challenge level
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Can you do a little mathematical detective work to figure out which number has been wiped out?

The Triangle Game
game

The triangle game

Age
11 to 16
Challenge level
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Can you discover whether this is a fair game?
Folding in Half
problem

Folding in half

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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How does the perimeter change when we fold this isosceles triangle in half?
Slippage
problem

Slippage

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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A ladder 3m long rests against a wall with one end a short distance from its base. Between the wall and the base of a ladder is a garden storage box 1m tall and 1m high. What is the maximum distance up the wall which the ladder can reach?
The perforated cube
problem

The perforated cube

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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A cube is made from smaller cubes, 5 by 5 by 5, then some of those cubes are removed. Can you make the specified shapes, and what is the most and least number of cubes required ?
Rectangle Rearrangement
problem

Rectangle rearrangement

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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A 3x8 rectangle is cut into two pieces... then rearranged to form a right-angled triangle. What is the perimeter of the triangle formed?
Curvy areas
problem

Curvy areas

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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Have a go at creating these images based on circles. What do you notice about the areas of the different sections?

Box plot match
problem

Box plot match

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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Match the cumulative frequency curves with their corresponding box plots.

Mystic Rose
problem

Mystic rose

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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Use the animation to help you work out how many lines are needed to draw mystic roses of different sizes.

Just Opposite
problem

Just opposite

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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A and C are the opposite vertices of a square ABCD, and have coordinates (a,b) and (c,d), respectively. What are the coordinates of the vertices B and D? What is the area of the square?
Painted Cube
problem

Painted cube

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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Imagine a large cube made from small red cubes being dropped into a pot of yellow paint. How many of the small cubes will have yellow paint on their faces?

Packing Boxes
problem

Packing boxes

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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Look at the times that Harry, Christine and Betty take to pack boxes when working in pairs, to find how fast Christine can pack boxes by herself.
Negatively Triangular
problem

Negatively triangular

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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How many intersections do you expect from four straight lines ? Which three lines enclose a triangle with negative co-ordinates for every point ?

Around and Back
problem

Around and back

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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A cyclist and a runner start off simultaneously around a race track each going at a constant speed. The cyclist goes all the way around and then catches up with the runner. He then instantly turns around and heads back to the starting point where he meets the runner who is just finishing his first circuit. Find the ratio of their speeds.
Building Gnomons
problem

Building gnomons

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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Build gnomons that are related to the Fibonacci sequence and try to explain why this is possible.
Quadratic Patterns
problem

Quadratic patterns

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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Surprising numerical patterns can be explained using algebra and diagrams...

In a box
problem

In a box

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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Chris and Jo put two red and four blue ribbons in a box. They each pick a ribbon from the box without looking. Jo wins if the two ribbons are the same colour. Is the game fair?

Slick Summing
problem

Slick summing

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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Watch the video to see how Charlie works out the sum. Can you adapt his method?

Can you traverse it?
problem

Can you traverse it?

Age
14 to 18
Challenge level
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How can you decide if a graph is traversable?

Building Tetrahedra
problem

Building tetrahedra

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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Can you make a tetrahedron whose faces all have the same perimeter?
Tetrahedra Tester
problem

Tetrahedra tester

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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An irregular tetrahedron is composed of four different triangles. Can such a tetrahedron be constructed where the side lengths are 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 units of length?

Newspaper Sheets
problem

Newspaper sheets

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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From only the page numbers on one sheet of newspaper, can you work out how many sheets there are altogether?
Triangle midpoints
problem

Triangle midpoints

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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You are only given the three midpoints of the sides of a triangle. How can you construct the original triangle?

Steel Cables
problem

Steel cables

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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Some students have been working out the number of strands needed for different sizes of cable. Can you make sense of their solutions?

Pythagoras Perimeters
problem

Pythagoras perimeters

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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If you know the perimeter of a right angled triangle, what can you say about the area?

Painted Purple
problem

Painted purple

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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Three faces of a $3 \times 3$ cube are painted red, and the other three are painted blue. How many of the 27 smaller cubes have at least one red and at least one blue face?
Doesn't add up
problem

Doesn't add up

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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In this problem we are faced with an apparently easy area problem, but it has gone horribly wrong! What happened?

problem

Funnel

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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A plastic funnel is used to pour liquids through narrow apertures. What shape funnel would use the least amount of plastic to manufacture for any specific volume ?

Summing geometric progressions
problem

Summing geometric progressions

Age
14 to 18
Challenge level
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Watch the video to see how to sum the sequence. Can you adapt the method to sum other sequences?

AMGM
problem

AMGM

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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Can you use the diagram to prove the AM-GM inequality?

Twelve Cubed
problem

Twelve cubed

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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A wooden cube with edges of length 12cm is cut into cubes with edges of length 1cm. What is the total length of the all the edges of these centimetre cubes?
Partly Painted Cube
problem

Partly painted cube

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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Jo made a cube from some smaller cubes, painted some of the faces of the large cube, and then took it apart again. 45 small cubes had no paint on them at all. How many small cubes did Jo use?

Ladder and Cube
problem

Ladder and cube

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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A 1 metre cube has one face on the ground and one face against a wall. A 4 metre ladder leans against the wall and just touches the cube. How high is the top of the ladder above the ground?

Far Horizon
problem

Far horizon

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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An observer is on top of a lighthouse. How far from the foot of the lighthouse is the horizon that the observer can see?

The Spider and the Fly
problem

The spider and the fly

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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A spider is sitting in the middle of one of the smallest walls in a room and a fly is resting beside the window. What is the shortest distance the spider would have to crawl to catch the fly?

Which is cheaper?
problem

Which is cheaper?

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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When I park my car in Mathstown, there are two car parks to choose from. Can you help me to decide which one to use?

Fermat's Poser
problem

Fermat's poser

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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Find the point whose sum of distances from the vertices (corners) of a given triangle is a minimum.
Triangles within Triangles
problem

Triangles within triangles

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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Can you find a rule which connects consecutive triangular numbers?
Which spinners?
problem

Which spinners?

Age
14 to 18
Challenge level
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Can you work out which spinners were used to generate the frequency charts?

Gnomon dimensions
problem

Gnomon dimensions

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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These gnomons appear to have more than a passing connection with the Fibonacci sequence. This problem ask you to investigate some of these connections.
Dicey Directions
problem

Dicey directions

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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An ordinary die is placed on a horizontal table with the '1' face facing East... In which direction is the '1' face facing after this sequence of moves?
Speeding boats
problem

Speeding boats

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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Two boats travel up and down a lake. Can you picture where they will cross if you know how fast each boat is travelling?

Quadratic Matching
problem

Quadratic matching

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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Can you match each graph to one of the statements?

Vanishing point
problem

Vanishing point

Age
14 to 18
Challenge level
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How can visual patterns be used to prove sums of series?
All Tied Up
problem

All tied up

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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A ribbon runs around a box so that it makes a complete loop with two parallel pieces of ribbon on the top. How long will the ribbon be?
Which is bigger?
problem

Which is bigger?

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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Which is bigger, n+10 or 2n+3? Can you find a good method of answering similar questions?

A Problem of time
problem

A problem of time

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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Consider a watch face which has identical hands and identical marks for the hours. It is opposite to a mirror. When is the time as read direct and in the mirror exactly the same between 6 and 7?
Triangles within Squares
problem

Triangles within squares

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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Can you find a rule which relates triangular numbers to square numbers?
bio graphs
problem

Bio graphs

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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What biological growth processes can you fit to these graphs?

Double Trouble
problem

Double trouble

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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Simple additions can lead to intriguing results...

Terminology
problem

Terminology

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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Given an equilateral triangle inside an isosceles triangle, can you find a relationship between the angles?

Bendy Quad
problem

Bendy quad

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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Four rods are hinged at their ends to form a convex quadrilateral. Investigate the different shapes that the quadrilateral can take. Be patient this problem may be slow to load.

problem

Track design

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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Where should runners start the 200m race so that they have all run the same distance by the finish?

Hypotenuse Lattice points
problem

Hypotenuse lattice points

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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The triangle OMN has vertices on the axes with whole number co-ordinates. How many points with whole number coordinates are there on the hypotenuse MN?
Triangles within Pentagons
problem

Triangles within pentagons

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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Show that all pentagonal numbers are one third of a triangular number.
Iff
problem

Iff

Age
14 to 18
Challenge level
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Take a triangular number, multiply it by 8 and add 1. What is special about your answer? Can you prove it?

Back fitter
problem

Back fitter

Age
14 to 18
Challenge level
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10 graphs of experimental data are given. Can you use a spreadsheet to find algebraic graphs which match them closely, and thus discover the formulae most likely to govern the underlying processes?