Brain Teaser Solutions
On this page you can find the solutions to the brain teasers from our My Maths Week Scotland booklets.
Matchstick Puzzle
Here's the original puzzle:
Can you REMOVE exactly THREE matchsticks, to make the above equation true? It can be solved in three different ways.
And here are the three solutions:
Magic Square
Here's the original puzzle:
The challenge was to place the numbers 1-9 in the squares so that the sum of each horizontal, vertical and diagonal row or column adds up to 15. You could use each number only once.
We started you off with number 5 in the middle of the square. 15 - 5 = 10, which means the remaining numbers in each row or column had to add up to 10. So you had to pair up the remaining numbers to make 10: 1 + 9, 2 + 8, 3 + 7 and 4 + 6. To solve the magic square, place the pairs of even numbers in the corner spaces, and the pairs of odd numbers in the remaining spaces.
There are eight different possibilities of placing the numbers, but they are all rotations or reflections of the same pattern:
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Edinburgh Science Festival: Facing the Future
It's Spring in Edinburgh means, which means the return of the Edinburgh Science Festival (30 March - 14 April)! This years theme is Shaping the Future, and we've browsed through the programme to pick out some of our maths highlights for you.
Maths for Climate Change
To mark World Meteorological Day (23 March), we are delighted to share a guest post from Professor Sylvia Knight, Head of Education at the Royal Meteorological Society, to introduce their new Climate Change Concept tool and show how teachers can use it to support maths in the curriculum.
Numeracy Workshops for Parents
Join us at the Scottish Maritime Museum to brush up on your numeracy skills and explore how play can help your child learn about numbers.