Is there an efficient way to work out how many factors a large number has?
Take any four digit number. Move the first digit to the end and move the rest along. Now add your two numbers. Did you get a multiple of 11?
Powers of numbers behave in surprising ways. Take a look at some of these and try to explain why they are true.
Can you find an efficient method to work out how many handshakes there would be if hundreds of people met?
Explore the effect of reflecting in two parallel mirror lines.
Square numbers can be represented as the sum of consecutive odd numbers. What is the sum of 1 + 3 + ..... + 149 + 151 + 153?
Mathematicians are always looking for efficient methods for solving problems. How efficient can you be?
How many winning lines can you make in a three-dimensional version of noughts and crosses?
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?
Four bags contain a large number of 1s, 3s, 5s and 7s. Pick any ten numbers from the bags above so that their total is 37.
Can you describe this route to infinity? Where will the arrows take you next?
Can you guarantee that, for any three numbers you choose, the product of their differences will always be an even number?
Do you know a quick way to check if a number is a multiple of two? How about three, four or six?
How many pairs of numbers can you find that add up to a multiple of 11? Do you notice anything interesting about your results?
Find a cuboid (with edges of integer values) that has a surface area of exactly 100 square units. Is there more than one? Can you find them all?
Liam's house has a staircase with 12 steps. He can go down the steps one at a time or two at time. In how many different ways can Liam go down the 12 steps?
Can all unit fractions be written as the sum of two unit fractions?
Some people offer advice on how to win at games of chance, or how to influence probability in your favour. Can you decide whether advice is good or not?
A 2 by 3 rectangle contains 8 squares and a 3 by 4 rectangle contains 20 squares. What size rectangle(s) contain(s) exactly 100 squares? Can you find them all?
Caroline and James pick sets of five numbers. Charlie chooses three of them that add together to make a multiple of three. Can they stop him?
What size square corners should be cut from a square piece of paper to make a box with the largest possible volume?
How many more miles must the car travel before the numbers on the milometer and the trip meter contain the same digits in the same order?
Explore the effect of combining enlargements.
Many numbers can be expressed as the difference of two perfect squares. What do you notice about the numbers you CANNOT make?
There are four children in a family, two girls, Kate and Sally, and two boys, Tom and Ben. How old are the children?
Investigate how you can work out what day of the week your birthday will be on next year, and the year after...
Ben passed a third of his counters to Jack, Jack passed a quarter of his counters to Emma and Emma passed a fifth of her counters to Ben. After this they all had the same number of counters.
On the graph there are 28 marked points. These points all mark the vertices (corners) of eight hidden squares. Can you find the eight hidden squares?
What is the largest number which, when divided into 1905, 2587, 3951, 7020 and 8725 in turn, leaves the same remainder each time?
If you move the tiles around, can you make squares with different coloured edges?
A decorator can buy pink paint from two manufacturers. What is the least number he would need of each type in order to produce different shades of pink.
Imagine you have a large supply of 3kg and 8kg weights. How many of each weight would you need for the average (mean) of the weights to be 6kg? What other averages could you have?
The clues for this Sudoku are the product of the numbers in adjacent squares.
Is it always possible to combine two paints made up in the ratios 1:x and 1:y and turn them into paint made up in the ratio a:b ? Can you find an efficent way of doing this?
A circle of radius r touches two sides of a right angled triangle, sides x and y, and has its centre on the hypotenuse. Can you prove the formula linking x, y and r?
Five children went into the sweet shop after school. There were choco bars, chews, mini eggs and lollypops, all costing under 50p. Suggest a way in which Nathan could spend all his money.
A 2-Digit number is squared. When this 2-digit number is reversed and squared, the difference between the squares is also a square. What is the 2-digit number?
Two motorboats travelling up and down a lake at constant speeds leave opposite ends A and B at the same instant, passing each other, for the first time 600 metres from A, and on their return, 400. . . .
Start with two numbers and generate a sequence where the next number is the mean of the last two numbers...
How many different symmetrical shapes can you make by shading triangles or squares?
Can you find the area of a parallelogram defined by two vectors?
If you have only 40 metres of fencing available, what is the maximum area of land you can fence off?
If the hypotenuse (base) length is 100cm and if an extra line splits the base into 36cm and 64cm parts, what were the side lengths for the original right-angled triangle?
Different combinations of the weights available allow you to make different totals. Which totals can you make?
The diagram illustrates the formula: 1 + 3 + 5 + ... + (2n - 1) = n² Use the diagram to show that any odd number is the difference of two squares.
The Egyptians expressed all fractions as the sum of different unit fractions. The Greedy Algorithm might provide us with an efficient way of doing this.
How many solutions can you find to this sum? Each of the different letters stands for a different number.
Which set of numbers that add to 10 have the largest product?
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?