My brother, Doug, recently visited me. He told me about his goal to get 11,000 steps every day. The American Heart Association recommends 10,000 steps a day.  Is it worth trying to get a thousand steps more than the recommended number?

My brother shared the cool mathematics of an 11,000 daily step goal with me, and now I want to share it with you:

Now I think 11,000 steps a day is a very worthy goal! It helps me see the big picture of 1,000,000 steps each quarter and 4,000,000 steps each year and that will help me be more likely to meet the 11,000 step goal EVERY day.

I wear a Fitbit to keep track of my steps everyday. A fellow blogger recently wrote a fun poem about wearing a Fitbit to keep track of steps, and it made me smile.

It will take you far fewer than 11,000 steps to complete this multiplication table puzzle. It isn’t the most difficult puzzle I make, but it can still be a challenge:

Print the puzzles or type the solution on this excel file: 12 factors 815-820

Now here is a little bit about the number 818:

• 818 is a composite number.
• Prime factorization: 818 = 2 x 409
• The exponents in the prime factorization are 1 and 1. Adding one to each and multiplying we get (1 + 1)(1 + 1) = 2 x 2 = 4. Therefore 818 has exactly 4 factors.
• Factors of 818: 1, 2, 409, 818
• Factor pairs: 818 = 1 x 818 or 2 x 409
• 818 has no square factors that allow its square root to be simplified. √818 ≈ 600699

818 looks the same right side up or upside down so we call it is a strobogrammatic number.

23² +  17² = 818

Finally, 818 can be found in these two Pythagorean triple equations:

• 240² + 782² = 818²
• 818² + 167280² = 167282²