Random Puzzles 

Workings

Hint
What dries?

Answer
A towel.

Workings

Hint
It will take a while to check 1 x 7, 2 x 7, 3 x 7. What do we know about the answer?

Answer
63,492 x 7 = 444,444

Reasoning
We can work backwards, as we know that the number multiplied by 7 has only 4's. We can try the following:
      4 ÷ 7 ≈ 0.57     x
     44 ÷ 7 ≈ 6.29     x
    444 ÷ 7 ≈ 63.43    x
  4,444 ÷ 7 ≈ 634.86   x
 44,444 ÷ 7 ≈ 6,349.14 x
444,444 ÷ 7 = 63,492

Workings

Hint
How many sweets in total are there?

Answer
1 in 15.

Reasoning
In total, there are 390 sweets in the jar, and 26 of them are blue.

So the chance of picking blue is 26 in 390 = 1 in 15 = 6.66%.

Workings

Hint
How many leaves will I have collected on day 5?

Answer
On the 23^rd.

Reasoning
We could simply keep adding until we get the required number:

   1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 9 + 10 + 11 + 12 + 13 + 14 + 15 + 16 + 17 + 18 + 19 + 20 + 21 + 22 + 23

   = 276 leaves.

But a more mathematical method might help to answer the Bonus Question, as this might take a while if we keep adding!

So, let's create a method by imagining that we are adding the numbers from 1 to 30.

   1 + 2 + 3 + … + 28 + 29 + 30

If we now take the numbers in pairs, taking one from each end, we have:

   (1 + 30) + (2 + 29) + (3 + 28) + … + (15 + 16)

Each pair adds to 31, and we have 15 pairs. So the total sum is 31 x 15 = 465.

The total sum from 1 to any number (N) can be found using this technique, and we will have:

   Each pair adds to (1 + N), and there are N ÷ 2 pairs. So the total is:

   (1 + N) x  N
             ———
              2

In this puzzle, we know that this equals 276.

So:

   (1 + N) x  N = 276
             ———
              2

We can expand the brackets, and multiply both sides by 2, to give:

   N + N² = 552

Rearranging we get:

   N² + N − 552 = 0

And 552 = 2 x 2 x 2 x 3 x 23, so this can be factorised as:

   (N + 24) x (N − 23) = 0

Because we need to find a positive number of days, the only possible answer is:

   (N − 23) = 0

So N = 23 days.
Bonus Question

To answer the bonus question, we have:

   (1 + N) x  N = 56616
             ———
              2

Rearranging we get:

   N² + N − 113232 = 0

And 113232 = 2⁴ x 3 x 7 x 337, so this can be factorised as:

   (N − 336) x (N + 337) = 0

Because we need to find a positive number of days, the only possible answer is:

   (N − 336) = 0

So N = 336 days (I did say that I liked collecting leaves!).