Thursday, October 28, 2010

PUZZLE: SQUARE NUMBERS

I've been a bit negligent with my math puzzles lately, so here's a frustrating one to make up for it:

Name two numbers with the following properties:

  • The square of the first number plus the second number equals 11.
  • The square of the second number plus the first number equals 7.

3 comments:

Gary Chapin said...

3 and 2! I did it! I did it!

Thomas L. McDonald said...

Congratulations! Wow. Now give me 5 more. (Just kidding. I have no idea if there even are five more.)

Gary Chapin said...

There would be an infinite number of these. For example

The square of the first number plus the second = 91
The square of the second number plus the first = 109

or (and I'm keeping the first and second numbers sequential, which may not have been the intention of the original puzzle)

The square of the first number plus the second = 2863
The square of the second number plus the first = 2969

These are insanely easy to generate. Not so easy to figure out.

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