The Locker Problem

Imagine you are at a school that

has student lockers. There are
1000 lockers, all shut and
unlocked, and 1000 students.
Suppose the first student goes
along the row and opens
every locker.
The second student then goes
along and shuts every other
locker beginning with
number 2.
The third student changes the
state of every third locker
beginning with number 3. (If
the locker is open the student
shuts it, and if the locker is
closed the student opens it.)
The fourth student changes the
state of every fourth locker
beginning with number 4.
Imagine that this continues until
the thousand students have
followed the pattern with the
thousand lockers. At the end,
which lockers will be open and
which will be closed? Why?
 Click here to simulate this
problem.
http://hydra.educ.queensu.ca/java
/Lockers/
SOLUTION
These numbers are the square numbers:
12, 22, 32, and 42. So, there is an open
locker door at every square number.
How many square numbers are there
between 1 and 1000? Through a little
trial and error, you'll find that 312 is the
last square number less than 1000. So,
there are 31 open doors (the last one
occurring on the door numbered 312 or
961).
 Looking at Factors
A special property of square numbers is that
they always have an odd number of factors.
A factor is a number that divides another
number evenly (with no remainder). For
example, 8 has an even number of factors,
namely, 1, 2, 4, and 8. But, 9 has an odd
number of factors, namely, 1, 3, and 9. In fact,
all numbers except the square numbers
have an even number of factors.
 You can use this fact to solve the locker problem. Take any
locker number, 40, for example. Its state (open or closed) is
changed for every student whose number in line is a factor of
the locker number. So, write out all the factors of 40, like this:
Student Leaves locker 40
1 Open
2 Closed
4 Open
5 Closed
8 Open
10 Closed
20 Open
40 Closed
 Like all other lockers numbered with
non-square numbers, it ends up closed
after all the students have gone through
the line because it has an even number of
factors.
Here's the factor pattern for a square
number, 16.
Student Leaves locker 16
1 Open
2 Closed
4 Open
8 Closed
16 Open

Locker 16 remains open because it has

an odd number of factors.
You can now conclude that all the doors
with square numbers on them will
remain open because all square numbers
have an odd number of factors.

You can now conclude that all the doors

with non-square numbers on them will
remain closed because only square
numbers have an odd number of factors.
There are 31 open doors. The numbers
of the open doors are listed below.

1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, 64, 81, 100, 121,

144, 169, 196, 225, 256, 289, 324, 361,
400, 441, 484, 529, 576, 625, 676, 729,
784, 841, 900, 961