Sixinit

Choose any whole number n, cube it, add 11n, and divide by 6. What do you notice?

Problem



Choose any whole number $n$, calculate $n^3 + 11n$, and divide by 6.

For what values of $n$ is your answer a whole number?

Can you explain why?

 
Did you know ... ?

Modular arithmetic is widely used to verify automatically whether a number has been correctly entered to a system. Each identification number (e.g. for passports, bank accounts, credit cards, ISBN book numbers and so on) obeys a rule which makes it easy to check (most of the time) whether or not the number has been copied correctly. For this reason such numbers are also called check codes.