Resources tagged with: Creating and manipulating expressions and formulae

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Broad Topics > Algebraic expressions, equations and formulae > Creating and manipulating expressions and formulae

Marbles in a Box

Age 11 to 16Challenge Level

How many winning lines can you make in a three-dimensional version of noughts and crosses?

Triangles Within Squares

Age 14 to 16Challenge Level

Can you find a rule which relates triangular numbers to square numbers?

Painted Cube

Age 14 to 16Challenge Level

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?

Christmas Chocolates

Age 11 to 14Challenge Level

How could Penny, Tom and Matthew work out how many chocolates there are in different sized boxes?

Triangles Within Triangles

Age 14 to 16Challenge Level

Can you find a rule which connects consecutive triangular numbers?

Seven Squares

Age 11 to 14Challenge Level

Watch these videos to see how Phoebe, Alice and Luke chose to draw 7 squares. How would they draw 100?

Triangles Within Pentagons

Age 14 to 16Challenge Level

Show that all pentagonal numbers are one third of a triangular number.

Steel Cables

Age 14 to 16Challenge Level

Some students have been working out the number of strands needed for different sizes of cable. Can you make sense of their solutions?

Partly Painted Cube

Age 14 to 16Challenge Level

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?

Cubes Within Cubes Revisited

Age 11 to 14Challenge Level

Imagine starting with one yellow cube and covering it all over with a single layer of red cubes, and then covering that cube with a layer of blue cubes. How many red and blue cubes would you need?

More Number Pyramids

Age 11 to 14Challenge Level

When number pyramids have a sequence on the bottom layer, some interesting patterns emerge...

Partitioning Revisited

Age 11 to 14Challenge Level

We can show that (x + 1)² = x² + 2x + 1 by considering the area of an (x + 1) by (x + 1) square. Show in a similar way that (x + 2)² = x² + 4x + 4

Harmonic Triangle

Age 14 to 16Challenge Level

Can you see how to build a harmonic triangle? Can you work out the next two rows?

Regular Hexagon Loops

Age 11 to 14Challenge Level

Make some loops out of regular hexagons. What rules can you discover?

A Tilted Square

Age 14 to 16Challenge Level

The opposite vertices of a square have coordinates (a,b) and (c,d). What are the coordinates of the other vertices?

Multiplication Square

Age 14 to 16Challenge Level

Pick a square within a multiplication square and add the numbers on each diagonal. What do you notice?

Magic W

Age 14 to 16Challenge Level

Find all the ways of placing the numbers 1 to 9 on a W shape, with 3 numbers on each leg, so that each set of 3 numbers has the same total.

Magic Squares for Special Occasions

Age 11 to 16

This article explains how to make your own magic square to mark a special occasion with the special date of your choice on the top line.

Interactive Number Patterns

Age 14 to 16Challenge Level

How good are you at finding the formula for a number pattern ?

AMGM

Age 14 to 16Challenge Level

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

One and Three

Age 14 to 16Challenge Level

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. . . .

Special Sums and Products

Age 11 to 14Challenge Level

Find some examples of pairs of numbers such that their sum is a factor of their product. eg. 4 + 12 = 16 and 4 × 12 = 48 and 16 is a factor of 48.

Number Pyramids

Age 11 to 14Challenge Level

Try entering different sets of numbers in the number pyramids. How does the total at the top change?

Sums of Pairs

Age 11 to 16Challenge Level

Jo has three numbers which she adds together in pairs. When she does this she has three different totals: 11, 17 and 22 What are the three numbers Jo had to start with?”

Age 11 to 14Challenge Level

Think of a number, add one, double it, take away 3, add the number you first thought of, add 7, divide by 3 and take away the number you first thought of. You should now be left with 2. How do I. . . .

Around and Back

Age 14 to 16Challenge Level

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. . . .

Janine's Conjecture

Age 14 to 16Challenge 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. . . .

Sum Equals Product

Age 11 to 14Challenge Level

The sum of the numbers 4 and 1 [1/3] is the same as the product of 4 and 1 [1/3]; that is to say 4 + 1 [1/3] = 4 � 1 [1/3]. What other numbers have the sum equal to the product and can this be so. . . .

Age 11 to 14Challenge Level

List any 3 numbers. It is always possible to find a subset of adjacent numbers that add up to a multiple of 3. Can you explain why and prove it?

Odd Differences

Age 14 to 16Challenge Level

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.

Generating Triples

Age 14 to 16Challenge Level

Sets of integers like 3, 4, 5 are called Pythagorean Triples, because they could be the lengths of the sides of a right-angled triangle. Can you find any more?

Pinned Squares

Age 14 to 16Challenge Level

What is the total number of squares that can be made on a 5 by 5 geoboard?

Hot Pursuit

Age 11 to 14Challenge Level

I added together the first 'n' positive integers and found that my answer was a 3 digit number in which all the digits were the same...

Think of Two Numbers

Age 11 to 14Challenge Level

Think of two whole numbers under 10, and follow the steps. I can work out both your numbers very quickly. How?

Can They Be Equal?

Age 11 to 14Challenge Level

Can you find rectangles where the value of the area is the same as the value of the perimeter?

Pareq Calc

Age 14 to 16Challenge Level

Triangle ABC is an equilateral triangle with three parallel lines going through the vertices. Calculate the length of the sides of the triangle if the perpendicular distances between the parallel. . . .

Special Numbers

Age 11 to 14Challenge Level

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?

Age 11 to 14Challenge Level

A little bit of algebra explains this 'magic'. Ask a friend to pick 3 consecutive numbers and to tell you a multiple of 3. Then ask them to add the four numbers and multiply by 67, and to tell you. . . .

The Simple Life

Age 11 to 14Challenge Level

The answer is $5x+8y$... What was the question?

Boxed In

Age 11 to 14Challenge Level

A box has faces with areas 3, 12 and 25 square centimetres. What is the volume of the box?

Attractive Tablecloths

Age 14 to 16Challenge Level

Charlie likes tablecloths that use as many colours as possible, but insists that his tablecloths have some symmetry. Can you work out how many colours he needs for different tablecloth designs?

Top-heavy Pyramids

Age 11 to 14Challenge Level

Use the numbers in the box below to make the base of a top-heavy pyramid whose top number is 200.

Pick's Theorem

Age 14 to 16Challenge Level

Polygons drawn on square dotty paper have dots on their perimeter (p) and often internal (i) ones as well. Find a relationship between p, i and the area of the polygons.

Hallway Borders

Age 11 to 14Challenge Level

What are the possible dimensions of a rectangular hallway if the number of tiles around the perimeter is exactly half the total number of tiles?

Chocolate Maths

Age 11 to 14Challenge Level

Pick the number of times a week that you eat chocolate. This number must be more than one but less than ten. Multiply this number by 2. Add 5 (for Sunday). Multiply by 50... Can you explain why it. . . .

Always a Multiple?

Age 11 to 14Challenge Level

Think of a two digit number, reverse the digits, and add the numbers together. Something special happens...

The Number Jumbler

Age 7 to 14Challenge Level

The Number Jumbler can always work out your chosen symbol. Can you work out how?

Lower Bound

Age 14 to 16Challenge Level

What would you get if you continued this sequence of fraction sums? 1/2 + 2/1 = 2/3 + 3/2 = 3/4 + 4/3 =

DOTS Division

Age 14 to 16Challenge Level

Take any pair of two digit numbers x=ab and y=cd where, without loss of generality, ab > cd . Form two 4 digit numbers r=abcd and s=cdab and calculate: {r^2 - s^2} /{x^2 - y^2}.

Matchless

Age 14 to 16Challenge Level

There is a particular value of x, and a value of y to go with it, which make all five expressions equal in value, can you find that x, y pair ?