Threes and Sevens
Math brain teasers require computations to solve.
Which is the smallest natural number that satisfies the following conditions:
(1) Its digits consist of, and only of 3's and 7's.
(2) Its digital sum is divisible by 3 and 7.
(3) The number itself is divisible by 3 and 7.
HintIt's not very hard.
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Answer
From conditions 1 and 2, we know that we need at least 3 7's and 7 3's.
Their sum is divisible by 3, therefore any number they make is divisible by 3.
By trial and error, we see that none of 3333333777, 3333337377, 3333337737, 3333337773, 3333373377, 3333373737, 3333373773, 3333377337 and 3333377373 is divisible by 7.
3333377733 is divisible by 7 (the quotient is 476196819.)
Therefore, the number we're looking for is 3333377733.
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Comments
cms271828
Feb 06, 2006
| Please stop sending these puzzles, especially when you don't make it clear if a 3 and a 7 are both mandatory.
Theres not much fun in guessing numbers |
teen_wiz  
Feb 06, 2006
| Wow. My brain's spinning.  |
wolfmanh 
Feb 06, 2006
|  GREAT teaser, although I am not to good with these  |
WJSMama
Feb 06, 2006
| I totally don't get these. |
paul726 
Feb 08, 2006
| I thought you did a great job! |
Jimbo
Feb 10, 2006
| cms, for someone who claims to be a Maths teacher, you don't seem to be very good at it. It says the digits consist of only 3's and 7's. How does that not tell you that there are madatory 3's and 7's. Like the number 33 consists of 3's and 7's ? Huh?
I liked the puzzle. Well explained too!  |
keveffect1
Feb 17, 2006
| Now that I have done a couple these puzzles are very easy so don't worry about all of these negative comments they are people with limited mathematical skill |
stil
May 10, 2006
| It would be nice if hint pointed to easiest of these questions, so we could try it first. |
tonjawithaj
Aug 07, 2006
| I got stuck...I'm not sure what a digital sum is...  my brain is off today... |
Johnny
Nov 15, 2008
| Nice! |
javaguru
Jan 28, 2009
| Silly me. Since it was not clear that the number had to have both 3s and 7s, I went with 777.
Too bad since I would have enjoyed working out the intended solution. |
tonjawithaj
Jan 28, 2009
| Why isn't it clear that the number has to have 3s and 7s? #1 says "Its digits consist of, and only of 3's and 7's."
The "and" would seem to me to be very clear. It doesn't say "or" or "and/or". |
jaysenf
Oct 03, 2012
| So it seems that 373737 also works and is less than the answer given. That's what we are looking for right? |
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