POW#2

Part 1:
The second POW of the year immediately made more sense to me when I
looked at it as: how many numbers between 1 and 1000 have an odd number of factors?
This is the only possible way for a locker to be left open.
As we were presented with this problem, Rollin immediately started drawing out
the different lockers and numbers, trying to find a pattern. Because I wasnt really
following what he was doing, I decided to look at the problem from a different angle. How
many numbers between 1 and 1000 are made up of an odd number of factors? Though
this was the only possible solution to me, it took a little while for me to find out that this
meant all of the numbers that are perfect squares. For example, take the number 4: Its
factors are 1*4 and 2*2. Since 2 repeats itself here, it can be combined, leaving us with 3
factors. 9 has an odd number of factors: 1*9 and 3*3. This pattern can be repeated until
1000, giving us the number of lockers open.
Here is a list of all of the squares under 1000. This table was found here.
1

=1 1

=2 2

=3 3

16

=4 4

25

=5 5

36

=6 6

49

=7 7

64

=8 8

81

=9 9

10

100

=10 10

11

121

=11 11

12

144

=12 12

13

169

=13 13

14

196

=14 14

15

225

=15 15

16

256

=16 16

17

289

=17 17

18

324

=18 18

19

361

=19 19

20

400

=20 20

21

441

=21 21

22

484

=22 22

23

529

=23 23

24

576

=24 24

25

625

=25 25

26

676

=26 26

27

729

=27 27

28

784

=28 28

29

841

=29 29

30

900

=30 30

31

961

=31 31

Since every single locker was opened by the first person, every second factor will
close the locker. This means every number with an even amount of factors (or students)
will end up closed. This leaves only the numbers with an odd amount of factors, which is
only possible if there is one factor that repeats itself (2*2, 3*3). Thus, every locker left
open is a perfect square. Another way to think about this is in a formula. Take the square
root of the largest number (in this case, 1000) and round it down to the next whole
number. The square root of 1000 is 31.622, the largest square (or locker open) is 31
squared.
Part 2:
The second part was asking us which locker is touched the most, which most of
us automatically began thinking of as which number has the most factors?
To begin, I was a little lost in solving this problem. Magic Nick found the answer
by looking it up on google, and then working backwards from there to justify it, and I
adopted a very similar outlook. I decided to take the number and analyze why it is the
answer.
The solution to this part of POW #2 is 840.
Since the number between 1 and 1000 with the most factors is 840, when you
think about it, it makes sense because it is a multiple of 12, which has several prime
factors, and it ends in a zero, which adds the prime factor of 5. After this point, I was lost
again and did not know how to continue.