Puzzle

Easter Basket Challenge

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Occasionally,  we hear that the number of Easter eggs that are found is one or two less than the number of eggs that were hidden. Still most of the time, all the eggs and candies do get found. You really have no trouble finding all those goodies, and the Easter Egg Hunt seems like it is over in seconds.  You can find Easter Eggs but can you find factors? Here’s an Easter Basket Find the Factors 1 – 10 Challenge Puzzle for you. I guarantee it won’t be done in seconds. Can you find all the factors? I dare you to try!

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1365 Shamrock Mystery

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Beautiful shamrocks with their three heart-shaped leaves are not difficult to find. Finding the factors in this shamrock-shaped puzzle might be a different story.  Sure, it might start off to be easy, but after a while, you might find it a wee bit more difficult, unless, of course, the luck of the Irish is with you!

Now I’ll share some information about the number 1365:

  • 1365 is a composite number.
  • Prime factorization: 1365 = 3 × 5 × 7 × 13
  • The exponents in the prime factorization are 1, 1, 1, and 1. Adding one to each and multiplying we get (1 + 1)(1 + 1)(1 + 1)(1 + 1) = 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 = 16. Therefore 1365 has exactly 16 factors.
  • Factors of 1365: 1, 3, 5, 7, 13, 15, 21, 35, 39, 65, 91, 105, 195, 273, 455, 1365
  • Factor pairs: 1365 = 1 × 1365, 3 × 455, 5 × 273, 7 × 195, 13 × 105, 15 × 91, 21 × 65, or 35 × 39
  • 1365 has no square factors that allow its square root to be simplified. √1365 ≈ 36.94591

1365 is the hypotenuse of FOUR Pythagorean triples:
336-1323-1365 which is 21 times (16-63-65)
525-1260-1365 which is (5-12-13) times 105
693-1176-1365 which is 21 times (33-56-65)
819-1092-1365 which is (3-4-5) times 273

1365 looks interesting in some other bases:
It’s 10101010101 in BASE 2,
111111 in BASE 4,
2525 in BASE 8, and
555 in BASE 16

I’m feeling pretty lucky that I noticed all those fabulous number facts! If you haven’t been so lucky finding the factors of the puzzle, the same puzzle but with more clues might help:

1349 A Rejected Puzzle

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I was in the mood to make a Find the Factors Challenge Puzzle that used the numbers from 1 to 12 as the factors. I’ve never made such a large puzzle before, but after I made it, I rejected it. All the puzzles I make must meet certain standards: they must have a unique solution, and that solution must be obtainable by using logic. Although the “puzzle” below has a unique solution, and you can fill in a few of the cells using logic, you would have to use guess and check to finish it. Besides that, you wouldn’t be able to know if you guessed right until almost the entire puzzle was completed. Thus, it doesn’t meet my standards.

Even though the puzzle was rejected, there were still some things about it that I really liked. In my next post, I’ll publish a slightly different puzzle that uses some of the same necessary logic that I appreciated but doesn’t rely on guess and check at all. This is NOT the first time I have tweaked a puzzle that didn’t initially meet my standards to make it acceptable. I just thought I would share the process this time. If you try to solve it, you will be able to see the problem with the puzzle yourself.

Now I’ll share some information about the number 1349:

1349 is the sum of 13 consecutive primes, and it is also the sum of three consecutive primes:
73 + 79 + 83 + 89 + 97 + 101 + 103 + 107 + 109 + 113 + 127 + 131 + 137 = 1349
443 + 449 + 457 = 1349