Question

What kinds of numbers or combinations of numbers do not work when solving equations? How do you know your answer is correct?

Answer 1

Explanation:

I wrote an excel macro that listed all of the combinations of these 6 numbers in a string, with the x and = symbols mixed in every possible way. (The first combination was “1*2=4568” and the last one was “8654=2*1”) I then had the macro evaluate the equations and find the ones that evaluated to true. Out of the 18,000 combinations of numbers and math symbols, only 8 of them evaluated to true. The true combinations are…………..

416=52*8

416=8*52

512=64*8

512=8*64

52*8=416

64*8=512

8*52=416

8*64=512

(Note that there are only 2 distinct combinations that work. The macro found all the ways that you can express those 2.)