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#### Resources tagged with Mathematical reasoning & proof similar to Five Circuits, Seven Spins:

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### There are 184 results

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

### Problem Solving, Using and Applying and Functional Mathematics

##### Stage: 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 Challenge Level:

Problem solving is at the heart of the NRICH site. All the problems give learners opportunities to learn, develop or use mathematical concepts and skills. Read here for more information.

### Picture Story

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

Can you see how this picture illustrates the formula for the sum of the first six cube numbers?

### 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. . . .

### Areas and Ratios

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

What is the area of the quadrilateral APOQ? Working on the building blocks will give you some insights that may help you to work it out.

### Sprouts Explained

##### Stage: 2, 3, 4 and 5

This article invites you to get familiar with a strategic game called "sprouts". The game is simple enough for younger children to understand, and has also provided experienced mathematicians with. . . .

### Proofs with Pictures

##### Stage: 5

Some diagrammatic 'proofs' of algebraic identities and inequalities.

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

Four jewellers share their stock. Can you work out the relative values of their gems?

### Stonehenge

##### Stage: 5 Challenge Level:

Explain why, when moving heavy objects on rollers, the object moves twice as fast as the rollers. Try a similar experiment yourself.

### Rolling Coins

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

A blue coin rolls round two yellow coins which touch. The coins are the same size. How many revolutions does the blue coin make when it rolls all the way round the yellow coins? Investigate for a. . . .

### The Triangle Game

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

Can you discover whether this is a fair game?

### Middle Man

##### Stage: 5 Challenge Level:

Mark a point P inside a closed curve. Is it always possible to find two points that lie on the curve, such that P is the mid point of the line joining these two points?

### Big, Bigger, Biggest

##### Stage: 5 Challenge Level:

Which is the biggest and which the smallest of $2000^{2002}, 2001^{2001} \text{and } 2002^{2000}$?

### A Long Time at the Till

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

Try to solve this very difficult problem and then study our two suggested solutions. How would you use your knowledge to try to solve variants on the original problem?

### Truth Tables and Electronic Circuits

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

Investigate circuits and record your findings in this simple introduction to truth tables and logic.

### 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.

### 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?

### Logic, Truth Tables and Switching Circuits

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

Learn about the link between logical arguments and electronic circuits. Investigate the logical connectives by making and testing your own circuits and record your findings in truth tables.

### Proximity

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

We are given a regular icosahedron having three red vertices. Show that it has a vertex that has at least two red neighbours.

### Napoleon's Hat

##### Stage: 5 Challenge Level:

Three equilateral triangles ABC, AYX and XZB are drawn with the point X a moveable point on AB. The points P, Q and R are the centres of the three triangles. What can you say about triangle PQR?

### Exhaustion

##### Stage: 5 Challenge Level:

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

### Rotating Triangle

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

What happens to the perimeter of triangle ABC as the two smaller circles change size and roll around inside the bigger circle?

### Natural Sum

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

The picture illustrates the sum 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = (4 x 5)/2. Prove the general formula for the sum of the first n natural numbers and the formula for the sum of the cubes of the first n natural. . . .

### Three Frogs

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

Three frogs hopped onto the table. A red frog on the left a green in the middle and a blue frog on the right. Then frogs started jumping randomly over any adjacent frog. Is it possible for them to. . . .

### Air Nets

##### Stage: 2, 3, 4 and 5 Challenge Level:

Can you visualise whether these nets fold up into 3D shapes? Watch the videos each time to see if you were correct.

### AMGM

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

Can you use the diagram to prove the AM-GM inequality?

### Logic, Truth Tables and Switching Circuits Challenge

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

Learn about the link between logical arguments and electronic circuits. Investigate the logical connectives by making and testing your own circuits and fill in the blanks in truth tables to record. . . .

### 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.

### 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...

### Euler's Formula and Topology

##### Stage: 5

Here is a proof of Euler's formula in the plane and on a sphere together with projects to explore cases of the formula for a polygon with holes, for the torus and other solids with holes and the. . . .

### 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.

### 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.

### 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...

### 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.

### 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.

### 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 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.

### 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.

### 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.

### 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.

### Similarly So

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

ABCD is a square. P is the midpoint of AB and is joined to C. A line from D perpendicular to PC meets the line at the point Q. Prove AQ = AD.

### 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.

### 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.

### Magic Squares II

##### Stage: 4 and 5

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

### 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.

### 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 of two or more cubes.

### The Frieze Tree

##### Stage: 3 and 4

Patterns that repeat in a line are strangely interesting. How many types are there and how do you tell one type from another?

### 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/...)).