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Today Puzzle #781

Puzzle No. 781– Monday 13 July

Professor Dodo’s landline number consists of 6 digits. If he forgets it he can easily reconstruct it as it is divisible without remainder by every number from 1 to 16 inclusive. What is his number?

Today’s #PuzzleForToday has been set by Chris Maslanka writer and broadcaster, specialising in puzzles and problem solving

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Dodo's phone number has to be divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 & 6. Break down each of these factors into products of prime numbers: 2, 3, 2 X 2, 5, 2 X 3, 7, 2 X 2 X 2, 3 X 3, 2 X 5, 11, 2 X 2 X 3, 13, 2 X 7, 3 X 5 and 2 X 2 X 2 X 2.

The smallest set we can construct so that each entry in that list of numbers may be found is (2 X 2 X 2 X 2) X (3 X 3) X 5 X 7 X 11 X 13 = 720720; so that is the smallest number divisible by all the numbers from 1-16 and hence Dodo's number.

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