mscroggs.co.uk
mscroggs.co.uk

subscribe

Puzzles

20 December

Earlier this year, I wrote a blog post about different ways to prove Pythagoras' theorem. Today's puzzle uses Pythagoras' theorem.
Start with a line of length 2. Draw a line of length 17 perpendicular to it. Connect the ends to make a right-angled triangle. The length of the hypotenuse of this triangle will be a non-integer.
Draw a line of length 17 perpendicular to the hypotenuse and make another right-angled triangle. Again the new hypotenuse will have a non-integer length. Repeat this until you get a hypotenuse of integer length. What is the length of this hypotenuse?

19 December

The sum of all the numbers in the eighth row of Pascal's triangle.
Clarification: I am starting the counting of rows from 1, not 0. So (1) is the 1st row, (1 1) is the 2nd row, (1 2 1) is the 3rd row, etc.

18 December

The smallest number whose sum of digits is 25.

17 December

The number of degrees in one internal angle of a regular polygon with 360 sides.

16 December

Put the digits 1 to 9 (using each digit exactly once) in the boxes so that the sums are correct. The sums should be read left to right and top to bottom ignoring the usual order of operations. For example, 4+3×2 is 14, not 10. Today's number is the largest number than can be made from the digits in red boxes.
××= 6
× × ×
××= 180
× × ×
××= 336
=
32
=
70
=
162

15 December

A book has 386 pages. What do the page numbers on the two middle pages add up to?
Tags: numbers

14 December

In July, I posted the Combining Multiples puzzle.
Today's number is the largest number that cannot be written in the form \(27a+17b\), where \(a\) and \(b\) are positive integers (or 0).

13 December

Put the digits 1 to 9 (using each digit exactly once) in the boxes so that the sums are correct. The sums should be read left to right and top to bottom ignoring the usual order of operations. For example, 4+3×2 is 14, not 10. Today's number is the smaller number in a red box to the power of the larger number in a red box.
+-= 8
- - -
+÷= 3
+ ÷ ×
+×= 120
=
8
=
1
=
8
Tags: numbers, grids

Archive

Show me a random puzzle
 Most recent collections 

Advent calendar 2024

Advent calendar 2023

Advent calendar 2022

Advent calendar 2021


List of all puzzles

Tags

menace folding tube maps gerrymandering rectangles sport complex numbers mean sequences digital clocks square grids unit fractions crossnumber taxicab geometry rugby balancing digits perimeter combinatorics games medians area cube numbers elections multiples numbers geometric means colouring spheres hexagons prime numbers planes consecutive integers coordinates dominos number numbers grids crosswords symmetry palindromes binary expansions pentagons consecutive numbers logic routes digital products geometry people maths median axes christmas calculus ave quadratics powers chocolate shapes chess grids circles volume decahedra bases dates range fractions cards neighbours squares surds indices functions dice pascal's triangle probability regular shapes integration polygons arrows multiplication dodecagons chalkdust crossnumber trigonometry quadrilaterals irreducible numbers the only crossnumber square roots shape percentages floors albgebra polynomials partitions money cryptic crossnumbers determinants sums factors proportion books matrices ellipses differentiation scales factorials means odd numbers perfect numbers advent parabolas coins algebra square numbers geometric mean averages triangle numbers cubics star numbers triangles tiling sets clocks graphs even numbers crossnumbers 3d shapes doubling 2d shapes cryptic clues division tournaments sum to infinity integers wordplay probabilty tangents addition angles speed time products lines remainders

Archive

Show me a random puzzle
▼ show ▼
© Matthew Scroggs 2012–2025