Factors and multiples

  • Divisibility Tests
    article

    Divisibility tests

    This article explains various divisibility rules and why they work. An article to read with pencil and paper handy.

  • Telescoping Functions
    article

    Telescoping functions

    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.
  • Sums of Squares and Sums of Cubes
    article

    Sums of squares and sums of cubes

    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.
  • Public Key Cryptography
    article

    Public key cryptography

    An introduction to coding and decoding messages and the maths behind how to secretly share information.
  • Playing with factors and multiples
    article

    Playing with factors and multiples

    This article for primary teachers outlines why developing an intuitive 'feel' for numbers matters, and how our activities focusing on factors and multiples can help.

  • Mathdoku demonstration
    page

    Mathdoku demonstration

    This video of Charlie and Liz solving a 6 by 6 Mathdoku may give you ideas for strategies to try.
  • Old Nuts
    problem

    Old nuts

    Age
    16 to 18
    Challenge level
    filled star empty star empty star
    In turn 4 people throw away three nuts from a pile and hide a quarter of the remainder finally leaving a multiple of 4 nuts. How many nuts were at the start?
  • Some Cubes
    problem

    Some cubes

    Age
    16 to 18
    Challenge level
    filled star empty star empty star
    The sum of the cubes of two numbers is 7163. What are these numbers?